Three Questions and their Answers
by insert-original-name-here
Summary: "How am I going to break it to my parents that I failed my potions O.W.L.? Why is Albus not back when his holiday in France was meant to finish, like, last week? And what the heck are you supposed to do when it turns out your long-term boyfriend is gay?" Rose is annoyed, Scorpius is sorry and James just infuriates them both.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N - This is set during the Summer holidays between Rose's fifth and sixth year. Hugo is between his third and fourth years – and way too energetic for a fourteen year old – and Molly has left school and done a muggle degree and is doing a teaching course.**

**And this is my first ever fanfic.**

**Disclaimer – I don't own any published fiction, unless you count a fifty word story in a book of other fifty word stories, which I don't, so I don't own Harry Potter.**

Life was cruel. Rose Weasley couldn't help the thought as she sat slumped at her desk. Mooching, her mum would call it. Rose had spent half her childhood listening to Hermione telling her not too 'mooch'. But Rose didn't care. She wasn't mooching anyway, just thinking, quiet and alone, but thinking. _Sulking then_. Rose mentally groaned as the part of her mind that spoke with her mother's voice came up with the other way Mrs Weasley would label her attitude, the more accurate way. Still, Rose didn't care if she was sulking either: when life was this cruel, she told herself, you're allowed to sulk.

Directing her irate glare towards the letters – or in one case lack of letters – before her on the desk, she wondered how life could have the heart to send her such depressing news – or in one case lack of news – on the day she had been so excited about. _Shut up_ she told herself dryly, then let out a small, humourless laugh, knowing that she was telling herself to shut up even though she hadn't spoken all morning. All of the half an hour she'd been awake anyway. _'Life' doesn't have a 'heart'._

She was still eyeing her desk with distaste when her brother exploded into the room – into _her_ bedroom. She groaned again, this time aloud. Rose had thought boys were supposed to have started growing by the end of third year, but in Hugo's case apparently not. He was still tiny and, much to Rose's displeasure, still seemed to have as much energy as he had had when he had been a five-year-old one man demolition squad. These days, his energy was mostly channelled into Quidditch, archery and muggle duelling or whatever it was that he spent his time doing, so it was far less often that he would be using it to impersonate a particularly destructive whirlwind. Today, however, he seemed intent on doing just that.

"Hugo, get out. I could have been getting dressed." Rose tried to force anger into her voice, but it seemed to her like she had spoken in a dull monotone – perhaps slightly exasperated but the anger had failed. She supposed the letters were sweeping sadness through her. Heck, she knew they were making her sad, they were enough to inject depression into just about anyone.

"But you're not," Hugo must have taken her lack of emotion as a sign that she didn't mind him being there because he had flung himself onto her bed and proceeded to fidget so energetically that her sheets flew up in waves around him.

"Come on. I'm not in the mood for this, just..."

He simply shot her an impish grin and kept messing up her bed.

"Look stop it, you're not seven! You can control yourself enough to sit still" Rose finally managed to get anger seeping into her voice. "And why do you have to be so mad anyway? You're not like this at school,"

"Well I'm _busy _at school aren't I? Quidditch four nights a week as well as homework and all that. Anyway, if I was like this at school, people would think I was _weird,"_

"You are weird." There was a pause, during which Rose reflected on the fact that Hugo was actually admitting he was crazy at home "You're not like any of the other boys in your year anyway." Hugo seemed ready to argue, but Rose cut him off "Just _go away._ I do not need an annoying kid brother who's _way_ too young for his age in my bedroom right now." Normally, Hugo would have the sense to leave if he realised there was actually a serious problem. But today, he didn't. He was prepared to carry on making a miniature earthquake on her bed, pull half her books off the shelf just to see what she read and generally snoop around her room in a far too boisterous way until he heard the door opening downstairs and a multitude of voices drifting up to Rose's room, at which point he turned and bounded towards the door. And Rose didn't have the will to force him out any earlier.

"Wait, who is that? And why did you come here anyway?" Rose called as he left.

His head popped back around the door "Oh, mum told me to come and tell you, you have to get up, 'cause, like, half our family's coming today," and he was gone.

"Right. Thanks."

She buried her head in her hands, massaging her eyes. Why would she have to face _people_ today? Of all days. And why were they coming here anyway?

Her brain aching, she tried to pull her thoughts away from the letters for long enough to think about why. But succeeded only in poking herself in the eye, and hastily moving her head safely out of the way of her overactive fingers.

Then it came to her. Of course, how could she have forgotten? Aunt Ginny's birthday was in a few days and they were celebrating it here. Why it was Rose's house and not the Potters' house or the Burrow, she still had no idea. What she did know was that it meant she wouldn't be able to wallow in her own sorrow for days, not until after everyone had gone home. And that she'd have to talk to more people than usual, and sooner than she wanted, just at the time when she wanted to talk to nobody.

As it turned out, she had been too right for her liking. One voice and one set of footsteps broke off from the general chatter that had started downstairs almost immediately. Rose was wondering vaguely who would be coming when somebody knocked on her door – knocked: it couldn't have been Hugo then. Or James. Or Fred or Roxanne. Actually, it seriously limited the possibilities – Rose muttered a grudging "come in" and Molly Weasley entered. Molly Weasly as in uncle Percy's older daughter, not as in Grandma Weasley. She sat on the still-messy bed, her red-brown curls bouncing around her round, glasses-framed face and falling over her slender soulders. Unsurprisingly, she was holding a notebook and a quill, a pot of ink hovering in front of her.

"Hey Rose,"

"Hey," Molly was clearly trying to be nonchalant, but Rose wasn't fooled. She was sure her cousin was here for a reason, probably so she could ask her something and write in her notebook. "You doing a survey or something?"

Molly looked abashed "Um. Yeah. It's just, you know I'm doing that muggle teaching course? On theology?"

"Yeah..." Rose only knew what theology was because of Molly's degree and her teaching course.

"Well, it's to do with that. It's too complicated to explain why, but I'm kind of doing this influenced by that. I need to get loads of opinions-"

"Yeah, well that's generally what you do with a survey," Rose snapped. She liked Molly, but she could be seriously irritating, especially when Rose was already in a bad mood, and today her mood might well have been the worst it had ever been.

"Um, yeah. Well I need to know what three questions you would ask God. If you had the chance."

Three questions to ask God. That seemed utterly pointless. And Rose didn't want to start thinking up questions.

"Look, Molly-"

"Come on Rose, It's just three questions. It won't take long,"

"Molly I can't. I'm sorry. I'm not feeling great right now. I've got too many problems." For a split second silence echoed noisily throughout the room. "Molly, I don't even believe in God!"

"Come _on _Rose, I need some people to give me questions,"

Rose inwardly screamed. Why couldn't she just be left alone? Molly's insistence was infuriating, and it didn't help that Hugo-the-whirlwind chose that moment to re-enter and plonk himself next to Molly on the bed. In fact, it really got to her.

She's started talking before her mind had realized what she was doing, out of irritation more than anything else, she had decided she would give Molly some questions after all. "OK - How am I going to break it to my parents that I _failed_ my potions O.W.L.? Why is Albus not back when his holiday in France was meant to finish, like, last week? And what _the heck _are you supposed to do when it turns out your long-term boyfriend is _gay_? There" She had just blurted out the three things that had been on her mind all morning, and to be honest, they probably were the three questions that, right now, she would most want to ask God. Assuming he even existed. Maybe they'd get people to leave her alone anyway.

"What, _you _failed potions?" Apparently not. But before she could answer Molly, Hugo had started up too.

"I wouldn't worry about Albus. He's only been gone a few days longer than we expected. Besides, he's with Harry freakin' Potter, he'll be fine." She must have still looked as dubious as she felt because Hugo felt obliged to make himself more clear. "Harry. Freakin'. Potter."

Rose didn't want to explain her problems, just brood on them. And even if she had wanted to talk to people, she wouldn't have known what to say. She was spared the immediate necessity, however, when Hugo and Molly exchanged a sudden look of shock and blurted out – inexplicably in perfect unison – "Wait, _Scorpius Malfoy_ is gay?"

**Please review and tell me how rubbish or otherwise you think it is.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N – Next part of the story. I'm so nice I'm putting it up so soon. I'm not quite sure why it's so soon, but it is. Thanks to **_**Lily18dm**_**, **_**luckydoggy**_** and **_**A.J. Horn**_** for reviewing, to **_**potter-granger-mad**_** and **_**Just Trina T**_** for favouriting and to**_**Lily18dm**_**, **_**luckydoggy**_** and **_**A.J. Horn**_** for Story Alerting. You're all awesome, especially if you reviewed (no offence if you didn't, you're awesome too)**

**If you don't work it out, James is between 6****th**** and 7****th**** years at school. And he's 17. Yes, he will be in this chapter.**

**Disclaimer – I still own only 50 published words and they're nothing to do with Harry Potter.**

**Following on straight from the end of the last chapter:**

Was she really that bad at making people see she wanted to be _left alone? _Rose was convinced that if they didn't go soon, she would explode. Probably literally. "_Yes_ Scorpius is gay, _yes _I failed potions _and _I failed History of Magic too. And," she glared pointedly at Hugo "why does nobody seem to care that we have no idea where Al is? He could be-"

"He's in France"

"Shut up, Hugo. He could be anywhere, we have no idea and nobody cares,"

There was a short pause as Hugo and Molly asserted that Rose had finished her rant, neither wanting to risk her renewed wrath, then both started talking at once.

"Harry. Freakin'. Potter, Rose. Albus isn't a little kid and neither's uncle Harry. They'll be fine-"

"-please Rose, the family don't need to monitor everything they're doing. I'm sure-"

"-_the_ Harry Potter. The one that spent about a year out of school looking for horcruxes with Mum and Dad-"

"-wouldn't be the first time the Potters had extended their holiday at short notice-"

"Yes, but it would be the first time without telling anyone. They haven't sent any kind of letter or anything," Rose snapped. Really, she had had enough of sound grating viciously against her skull.

"Harry. Freak-"

"Hugo, SHUT UP, or I swear I'll curse you, whether or not I get expelled for it,"

The silence that ensued was the one of the most uneasy times Rose had recently experienced. Frequently, Hugo seemed prepared to shatter it but Molly, ever the sensible one, sensed Rose's tension and put a restraining hand on her other cousin's arm.

Rose didn't know whether to be more angry with Albus or more worried about him. If he would just send her a letter she could relax – a bit, but of course her other issues would still stand. Or maybe she should be angry with James and Lily: if the whole Potter family was there maybe she'd be able to relax a little bit. Five people, she reasoned, would be safer than two. But as it was, the Potter family holiday had been brought to its knees that year. Lily had been so devastated at having to miss some 'massively exciting' Quidditch matches for it that Aunt Ginny had stayed behind to take her to watch them – frankly, Rose thought Aunt Ginny was probably at least as excited about the Quidditch as she had been about the holiday – and James had apparated back, proud to show off his new ability to legally do magic outside of school, a couple of days into the holiday because he was 'pining for his girlfriend'. As if he wasn't planning to spend the whole year thrusting his tongue down Jenni's throat in the Gryffindor common room anyway. As if they weren't already planning to take a gap year to do the same in his parents' house after they'd finished school.

The result, of course, had been a family holiday involving just Al and Uncle Harry – a less easily missed group than the whole family, and probably easier to ambush too. Rose, being the paranoid teenager she was, had assumed the worst when they'd been away longer than expected with no word to anyone.

"Rose?" Molly had finally decided to break the silence "Rose? I understand you're worried about Albus, but maybe, I don't know, they got delayed and forgot to tell us," Rose was about to protest, but her cousin kept going "Look, maybe give it a few days. If we still haven't heard anything by then, we can start getting worried."

Why could nobody see? They should be getting worried _now_. Rose supposed that was the best she would get though, and she couldn't go off looking for him on her own anyway, she still had the trace and she didn't even know how to apparate. She didn't even know if that was what she would do if she could. She just wanted somebody else to realise the weight of the situation. Grudgingly, she nodded. Maybe she'd be able to persuade one of her older relatives to help her – or one of her younger relatives to agree with her – before then, and if not she was sure Molly would give in eventually.

Right now, though, she couldn't face going to ask anyone to go and search for elusive family members. In fact, the only thing she thought she could face was reading her depressing post again and wallowing in self pity.

"You're in such a crabby mood Rose. It's so boring," Great. Just perfect. Now it looked like she couldn't even do that. After a pause during which Rose seethed and Hugo flipped through one of her books, her pitiable thoughts were once again interrupted "So Malfoy is really actually gay? But, he's been going-"

"Yes, Hugo, Scorpius has been going out with me since the end of second year, and now he's seen fit to tell me that all that time, I wasn't even the right gender for him. Now do you see why I might just be in a slightly crabby mood?" _Now are you going to think about giving me some peace?_

"Wow," Clearly not. "But don't you think-"

"Look Rose, are you sure you failed those O.W.L.s? It's just, you know..." Molly hastily cut her cousin off, and for a moment Rose was relieved. Then her mind registered what Molly had said.

"What, you think I can't even read now? Can both of you just _get out_?"

Rose hadn't realised she'd got up until she saw her feet on the floor. She hadn't realised she'd picked up her wand until she saw her little brother eyeing it nervously "Sure," he said, and bounced back towards her door.

There was no time for Rose to feel relieved, or register that Molly had completely ignored her and was wandering over to her now vacated desk before Hugo stopped at her door for the second time that day and called back "Oh yeah, mum said to tell you you'd better come down and get some breakfast, 'cause there's so many people eating here, all the good stuff'll be gone soon. Come to think of it, the good stuff probably will be gone by now..."

"Thanks Hugo," Rose muttered to his retreating back. _Perfect. Shit O.W.L results, no word from Al, a gay boyfriend _and_ no food. I have such a great life._

"Hey Rose, wait," Rose groaned. Molly still stood by her desk, holding an official-looking piece of parchment and frowning "Rose, I think-"

She didn't have time for this. "Molly, I have to go, I'm hungry."

She closed the door. Peace. Finally. Maybe she should just stay on the landing all day, hungry, but blissfully alone.

"Rosie," James Potter stood leaning against the wall, inches from her door, no doubt having been listening quietly to her raging in her bedroom. Maybe not then.

"So, little Scorpy's gay..." James confirmed her thoughts. _Well done Rose, great deduction. 10 house points._ Sometimes, Rose hated the sarcastic voice that she nurtured in her brain.

"I'm not Rosie, and Malfoy's not Scorpy. But yes, he's gay," she was mildly irritated to find her voice had been reduced back to a boring monotone.

"Malfoy now is it? You _used _to call him Scorpius..."

Did nobody get it? "Yeah, then I found out he'd been lying to me for more than three years."

"Well, sorry Rosie," Really, Rose hated it when other people were sarcastic.

"Rose,"

"Rose, then," James must've had the sense to avoid inducing even more anger than he already had in his little cousin.

"Wait, you must care about Albus,"

"What gives you that impression?"

Rose sighed. The times when James was funny and not just downright annoying were getting fewer and farther between. She had been sure people were supposed to get more mature, not less, as they got older. Maybe it was just her messed-up family. _The same messed-up family that was key in defeating Voldemort... _Really, Rose wished her mind would just shut up. "You're his brother,"

"Yes, but he'll be fine. He's with –" the corners of James' mouth twitched up in a slight smirk "Harry Freakin' Potter,"

She could have screamed. Really, she could "Just because my brother is a complete idiot, that doesn't mean-"

"But to be honest, it is getting a bit long since we've heard from them,"

Finally, the voice of reason. Rose was actually glad she'd been interrupted "So will you come and search for them with me?"

"What?" James seemed to be as surprised by what his cousin had just said as she was "Um. Rose, you can't just march over to France and start searching the country. Well, maybe you could... maybe I could anyway, but you couldn't. You can't even apparate or anything," for one of the wittiest guys in the school, James could be quite stupid "Oh. right. That's why you need me." There was a pause. Rose didn't have the energy for talking to James. Really, it could be seriously tiring.

"Anyway, I have to go." What? Had James just agreed to coming with her?

"To France?"

"Really, for one of the cleverest girls in the school, you can be so stupid, Rosie," _Yeah, well at least I only do it when I'm depressed. _"I'll consider taking you to France when I get back. If Jenni won't miss me too much. But right now, I have to go to the internet cafe in that muggle town."

Now Rose was completely bewildered. "What?"

"Big news, Rose. You and Scorpy. I have to put it on facebook,"

"No. Don't you dare, you big-headed-" but he had turned on the spot and was gone. At least Rose now fully understood why she sometimes hated her family. At least he had said he might come to look for Albus with her. _Hey, when did I even decide I was going to go and look for Albus?_ Sometimes life could be so confusing.

Well, she'd need something to do – other than eating what little food there was left over – before he got back. It was too bad she couldn't manage to do anything that didn't involve thinking about Albus, her O.W.L results, or Scorpius. No, Malfoy, not Scorpius. She growled, wishing she could confront him.

She was still on her way downstairs when she realised she may as well do just that. She'd have to talk to Scor- Malfoy at some point and she couldn't think about anything else. There was the minor drawback that she had no idea where he lived, but she could take the Knight Bus or something. Somehow, she managed to convince herself that it was a good idea.

Hastily, Rose hurtled back up the stairs, scribbled a note to James that if he decided he did want to come she'd probably be at Malfoy's and sent her owl to deliver it to him. She clattered back down the stairs, wolfed down something – she wasn't quite sure what – for breakfast, and called to her mum that she was going to meet Scorpius – not really a lie at all, but Hermione wouldn't assume she was going to his house to rant at him. She received a sighed 'OK' in response and frantically left the house.

**Sorry if this chapter flows badly. It felt weird to write, but I **_**think **_**it reads OK. If not, or if there's any other reason you don't like it, review and tell me it's no good and I'll maybe edit it or rewrite it, or if it does review and tell me that. If you like.**

**So Rose will probably enlist somebody's help and go and look for Albus, being the irrational teenager she is. If you have any preferences as to whom she persuades to come with her, or whether she goes at all (but if she doesn't that would probably considerably shorten the story) review and tell me and I'll take your preference into account.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N – Here's the next part. I won't have much time during the week, but I'll hopefully be able to write one or two per weekend between now my summer holidays, then more during the holidays.**

**Thanks to **_**A.J. Horn**_** and **_**Lily18dm**_** for reviewing again. **_**Lily18dm**_**, the Harry Freakin' Potter is an AVPM reference. :D**

**Scorpius is in Rose's school year. Surprise surprise.**

**Disclaimer – I bet you all thought I'd magically turned into JK Rowling since last week. Well I didn't, and as such I still don't own Harry Potter.**

Rose wished she wasn't sitting in a too-squashy armchair that was lurching unpredictably along with the unceremonious swerves of a purple triple-decker bus. She wished she had remembered she didn't like travelling on the Knight Bus before she'd rushed out of the house. She wished she'd remembered she could have just grabbed some floo powder and chucked it in the fire. She'd be there by now if she had.

The bus gave a particularly violent lurch and Rose groaned, blanching; she tried to find some comfortable way of sitting but it was as successful as trying to dispel her ex-boyfriend from her mind.

She also wished the conductor would stop staring at her. It forced all thoughts of rest from her mind, and made her even less likely to get comfortable. _But then_ she reasoned_ it's probably because he thinks I'm dim_. She felt her cheeks burn with fresh embarrassment as the thought dragged its way to the front of her mind. Even in asking for a ticket for the bus she had managed to mess up. The image of the conductor's face as she had blurted out "Berkshire. Or Buckinghamshire. Or something," had lodged itself by the one of Malfoy's letter. Admittedly, she had hastily put her request to rights by adding "Malfoy Manor," but her all time low had already dipped even lower by then.

In short, Rose was being flung from one side of the Knight Bus to the other, contemplating her stupidity and wishing the newly-appointed most hated person in her life would actually be there when she arrived, and at least have the goodwill to lend her some floo powder for the journey home. And feeling incurably travel sick.

So when she finally staggered off the Bus, muttering something that she thought might be "Just what I've always wanted to spend my holidays doing," she wasn't in the mood to confront anyone about anything, especially not the stately white peacock just inside the gate that was eyeing her with mistrust. She was just glad it wasn't guarding the –thankfully – open gate into the grounds as she crossed the threshold.

"Shit," Scorpius had told her his house was big, but she had never appreciated quite how big it was. If only this summer he'd sent her an invitation to finally come and visit and meet his family instead of a declaration that he was actually a vindictive liar. Then maybe she'd have been able to find her way around before she had to come and confront him about his prolonged deceit. Now she would probably end up having to march in and risk meeting his family before she saw him, or worse, him not being there at all. _Floo powder _chided the insistent voice in her head _would have spared the trouble._

"Shut _up_," there was a pause before Rose realised she'd spoken aloud, and hastily looked around, hoping nobody had heard her. Nothing seemed to change, and Rose was actually thankful that the Malfoys' grounds were so big, and the house far enough away. Relieved, she gazed back up at the abnormally large house, still at a complete loss. She wondered what she had pictured herself doing when she arrived anyway. She knew how rude it would have been to just walk in demanding to see him, or to sneak in without his family's knowledge. But then, he had been rude to her. A wild mental image formed in her head of her trying to throw stones at Scorpius' window to attract his attention, but she dispelled it immediately. She didn't know which of the multitude of windows was his. Heck, she wouldn't even be able to throw to most of the windows if she did, they were so far away.

"Good morning, Miss," Rose turned, suddenly alert, to see a house elf gazing up at her, holding a pair of secateurs. So somebody must know she was here, and have sent their elf to find her. With her luck it would probably be Scorpius' ominously notorious father, or his equally notorious grandfather.

"Er. Morning..." the elf's wide eyes stayed fixed on her, "Um. You didn't... come to look for me did you?"

"No, Miss. I is not knowing you should be here. I is coming to cut the hedge," and he innocently brandished the secateurs at her. "But can I help you, Miss?"

A spark of an idea formed in Rose's mind, settling alongside her relief that the elf wasn't here on Draco or Lucius' orders to find her "You work here, right?" he nodded, using almost his whole body "so you know where Scorpius is? Or at least where his room is?" Another flapping nod "Could you take me there? Please?"

"Certainly, Miss,"

The elf moved towards her; before Rose could hesitantly – and doubtfully – ask if he would avoid telling Scorpius' family, he had grasped her hand and they appeared in a handsome mahogany panelled room.

A vast emerald green-draped four poster bed dominated the space, and on it sat the cute blond guy who had dominated Rose's mind, his elbows resting on his knees and his face on the balls of his hands. _Cute blond guy? Dammit, what am I thinking? Evil blond bitch._

"Good morning Master Scorpius," the elf received only a grunted response, then left with a _crack_ that seemed deafening in the silence. Finally, the figure on the bed lifted his head in curiosity and Rose felt a surge of anger wash through her. What had he been doing all summer, just sitting there? Gloating that she's believed him for so long? Waiting to make a fool out of her?

"Rose," she glared unwaveringly into his face. It must have been obvious that his letter had reached her, because he continued haltingly "Rose, I'm sorry. I can't help... that I'm... Rose, I didn't chose my... sexuality. I can't help..."

Why wasn't he laughing at her? Or arguing at least? Was he really just going to sit there apologising for being gay? Rose thought she might have accidentally growled; this was more infuriating than all her cousins on a bad day. Put together. "No, Malfoy," – she was sure she just imagined him grimacing at the use of his surname – "you can't help that. What you can help is spending _three years_ going out with me before you finally saw fit to tell me. How do you think _I'm_ going to look now? Surely you thought about that?"

Now he was going to tell her yes, that was the whole point. Now he was going to start laughing at how everyone would think she was such an idiot for being led on for so long. She was sure of it.

"Rose... Rose, I'm sorry, it's been-" Apparently not. Surely then he was still acting, trying to get her to pity him.

"Well I'm going to look stupid aren't I? Scor- um, Malfoy, I have enough on my plate right now without the whole school having a laugh about what a fool I am. And that's not even starting on how I _feel_ about you just suddenly telling me-"

"Rose" – she wished he'd stop starting all his sentences with her name – "They won't all know. I only told you. We... don't have to tell everyone... I... wouldn't want either of us to look..."

What was he doing looking all sweet and pitiful? She was supposed to be getting _cross_ with him. "James put it on facebook,"

The bombshell. She watched as shock, fear, then anger all passed over his face in a matter of seconds. Scorpius and James had never liked each other and James had only tolerated his adversary for the last few years because Rose was dating him and Albus had begged him to keep the peace. Scorpius had followed his example, because James was Rose's cousin, and because he knew that if he restarted old feuds against James, the Potter would win, secure as he was in his bubble of popularity, and with all his superior charisma.

"Well if you're going to tell your cocky cousin about this, what do you expect? _You_ don't need to worry; he wouldn't make _you _look bad. What do you think this will do to me?"

Triumph! Finally, she had forced him out of his dejected, apologetic shell. She had taken no notice of what he had said, only the fact that he had stood up and started talking as if he meant it. Surely it would only be minutes before he admitted he was the manipulative person she knew he was. "My mistake will be all over Hogwarts by September and it's because of your idiocy,"

"_My_ idiocy? It's your cousin that's telling everyone. And it's me that everyone's going to hate. Everyone already wants to kill me because I'm the death eater's kid. Now they're going to want to because I'll be the... the gay guy that led on a Weasley."

"Well they'll have a point. You know, I protected you. Half the reason I went out with you in the first place was because I felt sorry for you," Even as she said it she knew it wasn't true. Maybe she had felt sorry for him, but the Second Year Rose would never have marched up and kissed the startled – but happy, as she had thought at the time – blond full on the lips if she hadn't liked him. Really liked him. And her feelings had only grown; she had obviously been mistaken when she thought it went both ways. "If it hadn't been for me and Albus, you'd have been completely alone. And now this is what you do, I wish you had been. I wish I'd never bothered."

"So would you rather I kept going out with you, even though you know... even though you know now? Or maybe that I'd tried to 'cure' myself?"

Everybody seemed to be flatly refusing to understand her, even when she made herself perfectly clear. "I'd rather you'd told me I was the wrong gender for you instead of stealing three years of my life. Can you get that into your head? You've been such a vindictive bitch, you don't belong in Gryffindor, you belong in Slytherin."

Something must have clicked. Her remark must have been too cutting for him; she hadn't thought it was that bad. She'd said far worse to him. Taking her by surprise, he sank back down onto his bed in defeat. "You're right. I don't belong in Gryffindor. I've been a coward. But – Please, Rose – I haven't been vindictive. Please listen to-"

Anger replaced the blood in her veins. She had drawn her wand and, though she knew she wouldn't risk using underage magic for him, pointed it directly at him "I listened to you long enough. For three years I listened to you telling me you loved me. A lie like that is enough to-"

CRACK! "Do you know how difficult it is to apparate specifically into a room you're never seen before? I mean-" Rose's raven haired cousin had appeared, panting desperately.

"I don't know anything about apparating, I haven't learnt how yet,"

"-I don't think _his_ parents" James jerked his head dismissively towards Scorpius, carrying on as if Rose hadn't spoken "would have been happy to see me randomly walking around in their house," He paused and glanced around "What the heck are you doing?"

"I sent you an owl; you know what I'm doing,"

"Your owl must have followed me to the internet cafe and back, I was at your house looking for you by the time it found me," Perfect. Another reason people would think she was stupid. "Anyway, do you want to go and look for my brother or not?"

"What? Oh, uh, yeah..."

"Wait, what's happened?" Scorpius blurted out.

"_You _don't need to know," James began to say, but before he had finished, Rose suddenly spoke up.

"Albus and Uncle Harry haven't got back from their holiday in France, so James and I are going to search for them. And you can come too."

"What?" Both boys were completely shocked.

"Malfoy and Al shared a dormitory. He might be able to help,"

"Wait, I agreed to take you. I am not babysitting a Malfoy, I'm going to look for my brother and he would just get in the way,"

"James, they spent most of their time in the same room as each other,"

"Sleeping,"

"Not always. James, come on. I hate him too, but we've gone long enough not hearing from Al and if anything can help us find him I'd want us to be trying,"

He paused to consider it, then glared at her. "Fine. But I'm not going to start chatting with the snotball and it's you who's going to be spending time with your gay ex."

"You two do know you're still in my bedroom don't you? And I'm still here?"

"Yes. Now shut up,"

"Potter, you can't just apparate right in here and start-"

"I just did,"

"Anyway, don't I get a say in whether or not I with you?"

"No. Come on, then, let's-"

Scorpius looked outraged "Wait, that's just-"

This was fast becoming both immature and boring, Rose decided it was time to intervene "Malfoy, don't you think you owe me something? As in more than just an apology? And do you not care about Albus?"

He paused. She did have a point and he wanted to prove he really was sorry, and get a chance to explain himself "Hold on, I'll write a note to my parents," he conceded, getting up to fetch a quill and some parchment.

"So," James turned to Rose "Back to your house, then to France,"

Rose had a sudden thought "Can we go to that internet cafe you keep talking about first? To see what damage you've done," Her cousin sighed but nodded and grabbed her arm, then they both waited while Rose watched Scorpius send an owl out of his window to fly back into one of the many others in the house, before taking his arm in a vice-like grip. James turned on the spot and they were gone.

**So there you go. Rose confronted Scorpius and James turned up. If it wasn't good enough review and tell me. Or if it doesn't fit with the other chapters, in terms of character and stuff. Or if anything else about the story's gone messed up. Or even just to tell me you liked it. **

**Writing my Rose on her own is difficult and in arguments it's too easy to abandon character and stuff.**

**If all goes to plan, I'll develop backstories properly later, while the irrational teenagers are in France. Assuming they do go to France, which I'm nintey-something percent certain they will. Sorry if it didn't seem like enough in this chapter.**

**Reviews make me happy. :D**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N – Here you go. The next chapter. Yay. It seems ages since I last wrote anything, much lo****nger than it actually is, I think. But maybe it's still been too long. Thank you to my reviewers for last chapter **_**Lily18dm**_** (thanks for reviewing every chapter so far and I hope I answered your question by replying to your review) **_**trina **_**and my completely anonymous reviewer.**

**In case there's ever any confusion, Rose isn't homophobic. She's just annoyed with a gay person. And sometimes irrational. **

**I'm seeing DH2 tomorrow (Yay). And on Wednesday I'm seeing it again. I hope it's good but if not, at least there'll still be AVPM.**

**Disclaimer: Guess what? I still don't own Harry Potter. Surprise, surprise.**

Rose didn't think she'd ever seen Scorpius – who hadn't ever had a facebook account himself but had often been an honorary member of the extensive Weasley-Potter clan that tramped down to use the internet during Hogsmeade visits – so fascinated by a computer screen. He and Rose had never really been bothered by the craze of using muggle technology wherever there wasn't too much magic for it, but now they were both staring, unwavering, at James' facebook profile.

When they had arrived, they had quickly navigated to it and above his last status ("the awkward moment when Minerva Mcgonagall realises she has the same patronus as Dolores Umbridge", which earned an exasperated look from Rose) was the clear declaration that Scorpius Malfoy had dumped Rose Weasley because he was gay.

Quickly, Rose rounded on her cousin "You know, I had kind of hoped that you were joking. I must have been so stupid – again – to even think that-"

"Rose," James directed her to follow Scorpius' horrified gaze "Look at the comments," Sighing, she read them, relief flowing through her as she saw that Scorpius had been right: none of James' friends – except Jimmy Smith, who was an idiot and had received a very bad response – seemed to think any the worse of her. They all seemed to have come to the conclusion that she had been manipulated and it was only their opinions of Scorpius that didn't look favourable. _Which might explain why he's gone so white and looks so cross. And... apprehensive._ Rose hastily squashed the thoughts before she could start to feel anything close to sympathetic.

"Well, we've got more important things to do than this. We'd better go," James helpfully cut through them, reaching across Scorpius to log off and adding cheerily "I don't know why I let Rose persuade me to take you but you'll have to come now. We can't just leave you here staring at a computer,"

He received only a glare in response, but both Scorpius and Rose got up to find a deserted place to disapparate from with him.

They arrived back in Rose's bedroom with Rose and Scorpius both feeling only slightly nauseous from the unfamiliar apparition and Rose was relieved to find it miraculously empty and surprised to find James was already leaving by the time she looked up. As she watched, he turned at the door – reminding her wildly of Hugo – and spoke. "Well, I'm going to get some clothes and stuff. I would too if I were you. Then we can eat, then go." He paused and glared towards Scorpius "And did he bring anything from his house?"

"Well, I don't know, why don't-" she stopped, realising James had already shut the door and sat down heavily at her desk. Why were people always doing that? Exasperated, she turned away from the door. "Well? Did you?"

"No," she shot him a glare, realising as she did that he was still standing in the middle of the room looking awkward, "You didn't really give me the time to though. You just grabbed me and apparated. I still think..." _Dammit_ Rose had already stopped listening. _Why do idiots always have to know what they're talking about? _"...Anyway, I think I left some stuff here when I stayed over Easter,"

"Well you might have mentioned a bit earlier," Lightly seething and embarrassed at not having remembered herself, Rose chucked some things into a bag for herself, found the things Scorpius had left and watched while he did the same, and rushed towards the door.

"Wait," she stopped in her tracks: Scorpius had followed her. She supposed it was just as good as leaving him in her room, but she had promised herself she'd say it, "While you're here, don't go near Hugo. Or Fred or Louis. Or Al when-"

"Wait, Rose. That's just-"

"Protective,"

"You can't- You never said anything like that about your girl cousins when you... before."

Rose was starting to think people chose to ignore the truth just to annoy her "We were _in a relationship_. It kind of goes without saying, don't you think? 'Don't cheat on me with my cousins'. Anyway, that was when I trusted you,"

She started to leave, but Scorpius carried on "Rose?" she flatly ignored him "Rose, this isn't all just because you're worried I'll start kissing boys you know is it?"

How insensitive could he be? "Malfoy, you dumped me! You know when girls get rejected, they get a bit upset? Of course this isn't _all-_"

"Wait, no. I'm sorry, I didn't mean 'all'. I just meant-"

"I've told you. I am _particularly_ cross because of what you neglected to tell me for three years. I don't care which boys you start snogging. I just wish you'd told me you wanted to before you started snogging me, and I want to protect my family from you because I know what a horrible, manipulative... boyfriend you can be, "

She turned on her heel and left. Of course the fact that an image of Scorpius with a shady, but recognisable figure had erupted in her head as she'd spoken had no significance. Neither did the fact that it churned her brain. She really couldn't care less, she told herself, who her ex boyfriend or any of her relatives chose to date. Only she knew Scorpius should be staying away from her family after what he'd done to her.

She was only glad the image hadn't gone any further. And that it had only been one of her cousins... Scowling, she conceded that maybe she did care. A little bit.

"Rose. Rose I'm sorry," Great. Scorpius had caught up again. Now Rose regretted taking him back; she had no idea how she would put up with him constantly with her in France.

"Just stay away from my family," they descended the stairs in awkward silence "Well, except me and James because you'll be in France with us. And James is in a steady relationship anyway. And I know he'd never even consider-"

A door burst open and Hugo exploded out of it. "Oh, Rose," she glared at him and he glanced past her "Hey Scorpius," This time he received a half-smile "Anyway, Mum says James says you're back, and to tell you that there's lunch in there," he jerked his head back to the door he had come in through and left.

"Well he obviously hasn't seen facebook yet," Scorpius remarked dryly as Rose pushed open the door.

She fixed him with a warning glare, snapping in a fierce whisper "Hugo knows anyway," and he turned to her, eyes flashing, before adding "You know I'd never consider going near James either. Just because I- Well I don't want to hit on every boy I see..." he grimaced under Rose's still-unwavering glare "Rose, I won't flirt with your cousins. Is that enough for you?" Rose appraised him for a minute before whipping around, satisfied.

"Wait, Rose," she stopped mid-step, rolling her eyes in frustration. Could he not see that she didn't want to talk? And that in the middle of a doorway wasn't the best place anyway? "Rose?" he continued, speaking to the unresponsive back of her head "Hugo knows? Have you been telling-?"

"Rosie," Finally. Sanity. Rose looked up to see who had interrupted them and sighed. Scorpius' company must have got pretty bad pretty fast if she really did think James was comparatively sane. "As lovely as your romantic gathering is, Rosie, we don't have the time for it," How could James be saying that? Rose was sure that between the two of them, her cousin and Scorpius would find some way to drive her to insanity when she was forced to be with them with no break. She quickly silenced her brain before she could chide herself about bringing it upon herself. "And you two are blocking the doorway," Great. James still hadn't finished. "We really do need to be going soon, so take this, get out of the doorway and go and get your stuff," he thrust some food into their hands and gave them a little push back towards the stairs. "I'll go and tell my mum where we're going,"

"James! You can't tell her she'll-" but he had already gone and left Rose seething at his complete inability to know when to keep something secret. Sighing, she trudged wearily back to her bedroom, eating slowly and ignoring Scorpius, who was still following her and asking who she'd told about his letter.

"Rose, can you _please_ listen? What did-"

"We don't need to talk about that now. James is going to tell his mum where we're going and she'll tell my parents and then-" There was a _crack _and James, once again appeared, grinning.

"Well?"

"She advises me not to bring you and she lent us this tent in case we need it. And we'd better hurry because she's going to tell your parents where we're going in -" he checked his watch "- about five minutes. Only they'd probably be fine with it anyway," somehow Rose doubted that.

"If you've been telling your whole family, Rose-"

James took her wrist and she grabbed Scorpius'. "We'll apparate to the coast and then I think I'll be able to get far enough to cross the channel."

"Wait, you _think_?"

"Rose, this is important. You've already got it put on facebook. If you've told your family too, then-" Just before the horrible, squashing sensation started, Rose glanced towards Scorpius and saw that it wasn't only anger in his eyes, or even the less drastic apprehension; behind it, there was plain fear. And this time, she wasn't quick enough to choke all the sympathy: some traces escaped into her consciousness.

**Bleh. This is very much a filler chapter and feels very odd. I hope it's OK and sorry that there isn't very much development of characters or backstories or anything or if anything else has gone messed up.**

**It's all been pretty Rose-centric so far. If you think I should do some chapters from other POVs, review and tell me.**

**If you have any other preferences about where the story goes, review and tell me because it might affect the story. Otherwise, review if you want to make me happy and motivated or if you want to tell me what you think of the story.**

**Are my ANs too long? I suppose you don't have to read them if you don't want to.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N – Woohoo. I'm putting another chapter. I now have over 100 visitors in total (123 exactly) so thanks to everyone who read it. Thanks also to **_**Anim3Maniac**_** for putting this on story alerts. I can't remember if I should have thanked you last chapter or not, but I'm thanking you now. And thanks to **_**Lily18dm **_**for reviewing again, and to my anonymous reviewer and to **_**Hatzie4realS **_**for reviewing too.**

_**Lily18dm**_** I said in a reply to your review already but I'll say again because I can, I'm English :D**

**Disclaimer: Hm, just checking... Nope, still haven't turned into JK Rowling, still don't own Harry Potter.**

"Well that went well," James was grinning brightly as he surveyed the forest they had ended up in and let go of Rose, who hurriedly dropped Scorpius' arm and slumped against a tree, glaring at her cousin. If he was being serious – and it wasn't always easy to tell whether he was – he clearly had a warped idea of what 'going well' meant.

"I thought you'd passed your apparition test; that was as bad as the Knight Bus," So, it was a slight exaggeration and Rose knew that apparition became easier with experience, but it felt to her like James had managed to amplify the unpleasant crushing sensation tenfold. Surely, then he didn't need to be giving her that reproachful look: there must have been some point to what she was saying. And that was before even thinking about his less than perfect judgement of distance. She raised her eyebrows, "I take it that wasn't deliberate, ending up less than a metre from the sea," recollecting the experience, Rose slumped further down, still wondering when she had even decided to come here in the first place and what madness had driven her to come with her most infuriating cousin and the most maddeningly innocently- the most maddening person in her life.

"I'm sorry if I wasn't good enough for you, Rosie," he was met by a determinedly stony silence "but to be honest, it's quite flattering that you expected me to be immediately perfect." she glanced up, only to be met by the infuriating half-smirk that always came with his 'witty' remarks "I wouldn't worry about it though; I'm sure you won't be the last girl deceived by my obvious outward perfection,"

"Can you never just stop being in love with yourself long enough to shut up?"

Apparently her question wasn't worth answering. Or even acknowledging "Anyway, I wasn't that bad. I got us here didn't I? And I apparated away quickly enough when we realised how close we were. You're probably just too weak to take travelling or something. I mean, what does _he_ say about it?" Here he shot a vaguely loathing look at Scorpius.

"He understands you as well as he understands me. Ask him yourself," Dammit, why did he have to bring Scorpius into this? It was only reminding Rose of the sensation that she had decided was worse than apparition – _sympathy_ for him, after she knew what he had done. And the worst thing was that she still couldn't crush it. Not all of it.

"Well?" James had rounded on Malfoy – still trying to say as little as possible to him – who was now looking from one cousin to the other, as if trying to consider which would be the worst choice to anger.

"Rose has a point, it wasn't great," apparently, he had decided to support his ex-girlfriend. Or maybe, judging by the pronounced paleness of his face and the shallow, slightly glassy sheen to his usually deep eyes, he had just settled for the truth.

James directed his displeasure towards Scorpius in the form of a glare, but both left a prickling silence long enough for Rose to sink back into realising she couldn't destroy all her sympathy for the blond and would just have to settle with ignoring it, and knowing he'd brought the flash of fear she'd seen upon himself. Assuming, of course, it had any reason to be there at all.

"You know, France is a big country. Did either of you know where you were going to start looking when you decided to come over here?"

Rose had known she would have to face her unhelpful lack of planning at foresight soon, but she had hoped she might have enough time to think of a way to make herself look slightly less stupid first. At least she could be annoyed with Scorpius without even a shadow of any misgiving when he was being so clearly frustrating. When he wasn't just sitting apologising. _Acting_ a voice in the back of her mind firmly told her _he was acting to try to make you feel sorry for him._

"Of course," James was saying, and Rose let out an audible sigh, hoping he did actually know what he was talking about. "Do you think I'd have come if I didn't? I was with them to begin with, so we'll go to the campsite where we were. They were going to stay there all week anyway," Rose mentally slapped herself. Of course James would have a good idea where they had been: he had been there with them until he had come home for his girlfriend.

"Oh, right, er..." Scorpius trailed off, at a loss for what to say, and Rose decided not to bother coming to the rescue by filling in the increasingly awkward gap in the conversation. James had obviously come to the same decision; he seemed to have no inclination to do anything except stare unblinking at his adversary for what seemed like several minutes but might have been closer to several seconds.

"And we should be going kind of now. We didn't come to hang around in a completely random forest. Anyway we'd better find them quickly because if it's something trivial and we miss Mum's birthday, Grandma Weasley would never forgive us," he took each of their arms grabbing Scorpius' tighter than Rose's, as he seemed to have taken to doing.

As they disappeared, there was no mistaking Rose's morbid mutter of "My mum's probably going to murder us both anyway," and there was no mistaking the truth they both saw in it.

The apparition to the campsite went far more smoothly than the one across the sea and as they walked together towards its reception they even managed to maintain some semblance of calm and happy relationships. From a distance.

"It really is in the middle of nowhere. Are you sure you got the right place?" Rose knew Scorpius' question wasn't good before he'd finished speaking, but thankfully James seemed to have enough sense to stay civil and avoid attracting attention from the few others who shared the track through the site with them.

"I came here with them, remember?"

Bliss. The silence began to envelop them again and Rose found that for the first time since that morning when Hugo had shattered her peace she could mooch. No, sulk, not mooch. Sulk and brood on her thoughts. Surely... surely she was right. Surely a boy telling his girlfriend after three years that he was gay was enough to put him in the wrong. For a second, she glanced back at Scorpius's face – which, she thought as she saw it, must have looked almost as concerned as her own – then his glinting grey eyes met her own and she hastily turned away, reminding herself that if he was concerned he deserved it. He had lied to her. Besides, he was probably still acting. She could just imagine his lips curling into a smirk, morphing into a sneer, the minute he was sure she wasn't looking. An image of his face as he laughed at her stupidity built itself in her head, those same lips reaching out to-

_No._ She destroyed the picture, recoiling, trying to imagine it had never been there. But she couldn't deny its existence completely. Nor could she deny that, as much as it would support her conviction if it was real, she had never seen quite that expression on his face. That had been made from a mix of his face and – she thought – from what she had seen of his father's expressions in fleeting glimpses at King's Cross station.

In any case, surely she was still right. Even if he looked deceivingly sweet and innocent – _No, just innocent. Malfoy does _not _look sweet_ – that didn't take away from what he had done. Yes, she didn't doubt that she was right about that. He owed her at least the help he was giving now, definitely; having dominated half her life for three years then just destroyed her happiness like that, it seemed only fair. Heck, he owed her more. He was still dominating her mind now; she hadn't even been able to think about the O.W.L. results that she had woken up so excited about that morning. The results that had been the first disappointment in her rapidly falling spiral.

"Rose," Could he not stop dominating even her physical life for just a few minutes? "Rose?" She grunted to show she was listening, hoping he might at least stop repeating her name "Look, I'm sorry-" _You've said that before. It was bad enough the first time_ "-But this is important, Rose," Her name again. She pointedly avoided looking at him. _You've said that before too._ "Could you please just answer me? Rose, please? Have you been telling your whole family about... about what I told you?"

She glanced up. The reception hut close and Scorpius was much closer. "I told Hugo and Molly, Scorpi- Malfoy. James heard. I didn't even mean to tell them. It slipped out because of the mood I was in. The mood _you'd_ put me in. I don't know why you even care anyway. They're the only people I told and they both have facebook; you know it's all over facebook now so you basically know who knows," What was he doing anyway? He'd just dumped her and all he seemed to care about was-

"I'm really, really sorry," OK, so maybe, Rose reasoned, the not caring had been better than the constant apologising "That time when you first kissed me, I honestly... I was really happy. I thought... I really thought that-"

"Are you two honestly having another romantic chat? I'd have thought that would have been what you did _before_ you broke up. Anyway, if you can tear your eyes off each other for a minute, we need to go in and ask if they're here."

Scorpius glared daggers at James. Rose transferred the daggers she had been glaring at Scorpius to James, then remembered she didn't want to talk to either of them anyway and looked up to see that they had indeed arrived at reception. With an infuriatingly arrogant smirk, James pushed open the door and marched in, leading them to the desk of a tall, spotty muggle boy maybe about his own – or maybe closer to Rose's – age.

"Could you tell me if there's anyone here under the name Potter? Harry Potter? We're supposed to be meeting them, only we don't know if they're here,"

"Sorry, the system's down," the boy gestured to his computer, his voice marked by a heavy French accent, but his English perfect "It should be back up and running by this evening though, so if you come back then, we can check. Do you want to pitch a tent then come back?"

James looked doubtful, but Rose chipped in "James, we could. Even if they're not here, we may as well start here, and sleep here tonight,"

"OK. Can we have a pitch for one night then please?"

"Sure, follow me," He stepped out from behind his desk and they all traipsed back out of the hut towards the tents that swarmed over most of the site, Scorpius still hissing ignored apologies and the beginnings of sharply cut off explanations in Rose's ear, James talking – in broken French now – to the muggle boy and Rose acting oblivious to them all, except to interrupt Scorpius when he tried to speak to her.

**Sorry if that's all messed up. Hopefully it should be OK though.**

**Still with Rose (I bet you didn't notice that :L) but I might still switch character later, like maybe do a chapter or so in Scorpius' POV to show more about him.**

**So Scorpius was about to tell us stuff, but he was interrupted because I'm evil. And we can't find out about Albus and Harry because the computer system's down. Because I'm evil - if that's bad review and tell be. But you'll probably have to wait until next chapter to find out about it. Which you'll probably have to wait until at least next Wednesday for because I'm going camping until next Tuesday so I won't be writing, but I'll update as soon as I can.**

**If you've penetrated my mind, you'll know that reviews make me happy. Or if you've written fanfics and been reviewed yourself you'll know. Or if you've done neither you could just take my word for it and review.**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N – Another chapter *wild excitement :L* Sorry that this one's taken so much longer. It's partly because I've had things going on and partly because of my laziness. It kind of destroyed my plan of writing more over the summer holidays. They've just finished and I haven't written all the time but hopefully I should be back up to a lose timescale of about once per weekend once I'm back in a routine. Thanks to **_**Lily18dm**_** (again, yay. Thank you), to **_**GGGGGaaaaaabbbbbbbbyyyyyyyy **_**and to **_**midnightstar19**_** for reviewing and to **_**midnightstar19 **_**for putting this on your Story Alerts. :)**

**Anyway, this one's different because it's all Scorpius-y.**

**Disclaimer – Not forgetting, of course, that I still don't own Harry Potter and aren't expecting to anytime soon. Or ever.**

After five years of knowing him, Scorpius had never been able to work out why James Potter was so popular and it didn't look like – even with spending most of their time together for what could end up being days – that was going to change anytime soon. He had long ago deduced that it couldn't be much to do with his personality. So, he was reasonably clever, witty in a lot of ways and did seem to care about other people – sometimes. The fact remained that most of the time he ended up being an egotistical git who seemed to believe thinking was beneath him. Not like his brother. He always wondered why Albus was less popular than James, even though Albus was so much more- but he would never tell anyone that of course. It could be interpreted- Well, Scorpius had to assume that James' popularity was entirely – or almost entirely – because of his parents. Although it might have had something to do with the fact that he wasn't bad looking either.

Not that he had spent most of his time at Hogwarts analysing the personality of someone he mostly ignored, he thought, as he looked up to where James was sitting on the top bed of one of the two bunks somehow squeezed into the room inside the tent Ginny Potter had lent them, talking to an irate Rose.

Rose. He had, on the other hand, spent a lot of time thinking about her. Heck, of course he had: he'd been going out with her for so long. He'd even believed he'd felt- felt what towards her? He didn't think he even knew now. But he could be forgiven for that, surely. She was kind, funny, accepting. Not unlike her other cousin – assuming, of course, you hadn't done something terrible to offend her. But then, it was probably good that at times like that she was so headstrong; he had convinced himself that there must be truth in what she was saying. At least it meant she was a strong character. At least it was clear that she belonged in the house she had been sorted into.

"We can't just sit here doing nothing though. Couldn't we, I don't know, search around the site for them or something?" Rose's bold determination to find her cousin displayed another of her Gryffindor characteristics. Scorpius wished he could stop upsetting her, but he knew it was impossible to like her as more than a friend. He wished at least he had been able to tell her earlier, as soon as- well he wished he hadn't kept putting it off. And telling her in a letter only when he had realised he... well, telling her in a letter certainly wasn't very Gryffindor of him.

He glanced up again to see James looking unconvinced. "Rosie –" he managed to immediately earn a sharp look from his cousin, but, true to his form, unconcernedly ignored it "– Do you have any idea how big this campsite is? Chances are we wouldn't find them even if we did look,"

"Don't you find it frustrating though? We've been doing nothing for ages," she had a fair point: ever since James had magically – and surreptitiously – erected the tent, they had been sitting, cramped, in the only room other than the poky bathroom it contained – Rose and James on top of either bunk and Scorpius at the small table in the middle.

And he hadn't even chosen to come here at all. Then again, he probably would have chosen to – he did owe something to Rose and Albus was- he had been the first person to talk to him – actually talk and have a conversation – at school, and stayed one of the few people who did. He was kind and understanding and Scorpius did care about whether he was safe. More than he would let Rose know. Life at his house in the holidays was never particularly exciting anyway; this couldn't be massively worse, surely.

"I'm sure we all find it frustrating," James was saying with a melodramatic sigh "Your little boyfriend seems just as frustrated as you in any case. But you know there's nothing we can do unless we want to walk back up to reception and wait there for hours instead,"

_OK, scratch that_, Scorpius decided as he tuned back out of the conversation, _I'm with James Potter and Rose may as well be in a rocket ship... or on Mars for all she cares. This is going to be worse than home._

He would still have chosen to go, given the circumstances, he told himself. And he had made a mistake with Rose, to put it lightly. He had brought a lot of it upon himself...

"Malfoy! Come on," the sound of Rose's retreating voice, subtly laced with an almost casual scathing, swam, unwelcome, into his mind as he sat up, trying to work out whether he had fallen asleep. Maybe he had just spiralled deeper into his own thoughts.

"Rose? What is it?"

"Maybe if you would focus –" James was speaking now "– you'd know-"

"Well I'm sorry." Scorpius loaded his voice with sarcasm, annoyance flowing through him "I wasn't aware you expected me to listen to absolutely everything you-"

"Really? You don't seem to have anything better to do though, do you?" Scorpius supposed he wasn't being serious; surely he didn't really expect that. Even if he did, it was too ludicrous to listen to, especially from James Potter "We could have been having an important conversation and you wouldn't know because you're too busy, what, fantasising about becoming a Death Eater, just like your daddy did when he was your age?"

It was a low blow. James knew that Scorpius wasn't proud of what his father had done years ago. And that his father had said that he wasn't proud either. He knew that Scorpius would never even consider doing the same, even if he could. Even if it would benefit him.

Rose marched back towards them, a look of extreme exasperation plastered across her features. "James," she muttered, pointedly ignoring Scorpius and apparently trying to refrain from either shouting or growling with colossal effort and only minimal success "You're just wasting time,"

"You told me you hate him too," her cousin shot back, giving a dramatic fake pout.

"That doesn't mean I want you to constantly- He's still a human being, for heaven's sake. He doesn't deserve-" both boys' eyes widened in surprise, and she seemed equally shocked "But, um... anyway, I told you you're wasting time. Don't you think it's more important that we find Albus?" the words were hastily garbled out of her mouth, and, without looking at either of them, she left the tent.

"Wait, is either of you going to tell me what's going on?" Scorpius asked James' retreating back as he followed her.

"No. Now come on." came the short reply, followed by a stale silence until James seemed to decide that in fact, there was no point in not telling him. "Rose has decided that the computers must be back up by now. We're going back up there."

From Rose's panic, he had expected something more dramatic. "Bit of an anticlimax,"

Either he wasn't worth replying to, or he had spoken too quietly to be heard. Though that was probably a good thing: he didn't really fancy another conversation with James right then. And the same could probably be said for the older boy about him, because he spent the entire walk talking quietly to his cousin.

Until, of course, they arrived back at reception for the second time that day and James led the way in. The spotty boy from earlier was still at his desk, muttering quiet French to his computer as he stared at the screen. Next to him, a young woman who was might have been fairly pretty under her thick mask of makeup sat at her own computer, having clearly decided filing her nails would be a more interesting pastime than whatever work her neighbour was doing. Scorpius was mildly repulsed as she shot what she obviously thought was a seductive wink – but seemed to have turned out more like a grimacy squint – at James and he, grinning in a vaguely amused way, smiled slightly flirtatiously back. Apparently to Rose's displeasure, as she leaned over to hiss "You've _got a girlfriend_," in his ear and seemed only partially reassured when he muttered back "I know, and she's so much better than that woman. But do you expect me to just _ignore_ her?"

Leaving Rose looking wearily appalled, he strode up to the boy from earlier and stared enquiring about the other Potters.

Scorpius paused. He and Rose had both hung back and were both just standing awkwardly in the middle of the room; a quick glance told him she was again stonily blank. He shouldn't have put off telling her for so long. He shouldn't have left it until he'd already begun to realise – but he should try not to acknowledge that._ Well that's going to be possible isn't it?_ He gave a dry half-laugh and Rose shot him a slight glare. OK, so he had messed up, but it hadn't been easy for him either; he hadn't even known – known what was going on for long. He knew he'd have to try explaining to her again. At some point. He also knew she would flatly refuse to listen again, but he had to talk to her. He could tell he had hurt her as much as he was hurt himself.

"Rose?" he was startled by the way her eyes flashed scornfully in his direction and even more startled by the way they seemed to soften for a moment before she snapped them forcefully back into a glare. He stopped, taken aback that she seemed like she might listen to him, not knowing what to say. He could hardly just blurt out something like _I'm sorry I'm gay and I should have told you months ago when I first found out – yes it was only months – but I was too scared to tell you until I realised I fancied your cousin._ A pause. There, he had admitted it – fully admitted it – if only to himself.

"Oy," James was calling, his usual romantic-moment comment sparkling behind his eyes, but thankfully held back, allowing for more important conversation "They've just got their systems back up. Come on,"

Scorpius would have groaned if he hadn't been glad that they could finally get somewhere: Rose's head turned quickly away, her face changing from shocked that she had acknowledged him to become delighted and excited. Then Scorpius looked around too, and all three of them were staring transfixed at the desk, the conversation momentarily forgotten.

"Hmm-" a pause while the computer whirred "Ah, no. Sorry. It's crashed again. It's not normally like this. We'll have to get someone in to fix it..."

Rose sighed almost inaudibly, and turned to James – Scorpius really wondered why she had thought bringing him would be any use if she was going to just ignore him. "We've got no idea where they could be. Still. What the heck are we supposed to do now?"

As it turned out, however, Scorpius was the only one who heard most of what she had said: James was facing the muggle again.

"Do you have any idea where they might be? Did they mention anything that might..."

But he had trailed off because the boy was shaking his head. "Sorry, I don't know,"

"Right," he turned – once again – from the desk "I suppose we'll just have to assume-"

"Wait, did you say you were looking for 'Potter'?" the neighbouring receptionist had stood up, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on James. Momentarily, Scorpius registered that her English was also perfect. Then he realised that maybe she wasn't just talking to impress James and might have something useful to say. "Strange looking man? Messy hair and really round glasses? Weird mark on his forehead?" James was nodding and Rose was attentive "Kid with a crazy name? Like Elvis or something?" Scorpius had to fight the impulse to snort with laughter. How she had decided Albus' name was Elvis he didn't know. "And... wait-" she gazed at James "-you were there. To begin with, but not all the time."

"Well no, he wouldn't be asking if they were still here if he'd been with them all the time," Rose was clearly getting impatient. "So we know we're talking about the same people. Do you know anything about where they might be?"

"Ah, well, I don't remember seeing them leaving... so they might still be here. But then again, they might have left on another shift..."

"So do you have any idea where they might be, or are you just wasting our time?" Rose snapped irritably, but was greeted with only a crisp silence "Thought so,"

"Right, well thanks," James grinned cheerily and led the way out with an unconvincingly jaunty wave, and Rose looking like she was about to bite off the head of the next person who even slightly annoyed her.

Which was why it probably wasn't a great thing that a voice, seemingly completely oblivious to her displeasure, was calling to them from just off the path they were on.

**There you go. Scorpius. Did you like him and would you like more of him, or mainly Rose? And does he seem plausible, and fit in with what we've seen of him so far? And does it seem like he fancies Rose? Because it did originally.**

**Still evil. Sorry. But hopefully next time it will be less so. It does seem like this chapter doesn't have much point at the moment, except to be Scorpius' first chapter. It had more point before I edited it, but now I think it will fit in better with the story as a whole, so I hope it's OK.**

**If you are reading this and are willing please review so I know you are reading it and what you think of it.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Sorry it's been so long. I've had German exchange and exams and stuff. To be fair, I could have written it at some point, but I do have some excuses. **

**Aaaaaaaaanyway, thanks to **_**GGGGAAAAAABBBBYYYYYYYYY, trina**_** and Midnightstar19 for reviewing, you're awesome. And to **_**Cassandra Brighteye**_** for putting this on Story Alerts. You're awesome too. :)**

**So I was reading the rest of this and I realised it was very crazy. And this is probably crazy too, but nevermind. It's also one of the shortest chapters so sorry.**

**Disclaimer: I have still not started owning Harry Potter. And I never will.**

"Rose!" whoever it was, Rose didn't want to see them. At all. She hadn't wanted to face _anyone_ since that morning – she found it hard to believe that it was really only that morning – when she had got those letters. Of course spending the best part of a day, which now, with evening closing in, seemed like it would become longer, with James and Scorpius, then being forced to waste time with a muggle bimbo and a mucked up computer hadn't helped. So whoever it was, someone else could deal with it. "Rose! Scorpius..."

Grudginly, she glanced back; Malfoy stood talking to a girl about their age and James stood watching with a half amused grin. She sighed, deciding she had better wait for them and standing a couple of yards back, glaring and trying to work out who the girl was – she had recognised them so presumably they must know her – and why James seemed to think it was funny.

"Hey Scorpius," the girl smiled slightly at James and waved at Rose "it's so weird seeing you – or anyone from Hogwarts really – at a completely muggle campsite... Hey, are you just with Rose, because your dad doesn't normally... um, well... you know... er..."

As Scorpius replied, Rose suddenly realised who he was talking to: a muggle born Hufflepuff in her year who had so far had seemed pretty unremarkable as far as school life was concerned. Rose thought she was called Louise... or Louisa. Something like that anyway. She frowned, trying to remember as Scorpius began to reply. _So much for him saying everyone at school wants to kill him. The minute he sees someone they start chatting to him._ She thought it, but she knew she didn't believe it. Scorpius was awkward socially and there were a lot of people who did seem to be compulsively averse to him because of who he was. _Probably even more now you and James have- _Sighing again she cut the thought off. It wasn't exactly _her_ fault that James seemed to want to put everything he heard on facebook. And anyway, Scorpius had been an idiot at best and at best a manipulative git at worst. He had brought it upon himself.

"Yeah, so how long have you been cut off from the world? Or, I don't know, do you use facebook and stuff when you're camping? My parents generally don't let me. I suppose it makes sense though..."

"Oh, er, I don't have facebook. And I don't have the internet at home anyway, so..."

"Oh yeah, of course,"

Suddenly, the realisation of what she had asked seemed to drift over to Scorpius "But, yeah, we've only just arrived today,"

"Oh, right. So, do you know if anything interesting's happening?"

"Oh, no, not really. At least, I haven't heard about anything. It never really does I suppose. Or if the kind of things most people would want to know about happen," he added with a pointed glance at James, who grinned back in mock obliviousness "they're going to want to keep it from people, not tell everyone or put it all over the internet or whatever," Didn't Scorpius realise they were busy? Chatting with a random Hufflepuff wasn't going to get them anywhere.

Louise – or Louisa, Rose still couldn't remember her name – was nodding "Yeah, if it was something personal I wouldn't want to put it on there. And I wouldn't expect people to either..."

Then there was a half-awkward, half-companiable pause. They just stopped and stood there. Rose was on the point of striding forward and reminding Scorpius and James that they couldn't just wait around all day when the Hufflepuff suddenly seemed to think of something. Rose groaned, waiting for her to finish speaking. "Wait, James, are you all here with your dad and Albus? Only I saw them the other day and they seemed to be alone. And... I don't know, you don't exactly seem to be with them and... sorry, just, you being on the same campsite and separate seems... I don't know, not very... um... plausible?"

She looked slightly embarrassed and seemed to agree with Rose that plausible wasn't quite the right word, but Rose didn't really care. She had covered the short distance between them in seconds. Written on the girl's face was the thought that it was a bit weird – or not very plausible – that James Potter was camping with Rose and Scorpius at all, but she wisely seemed to think better of saying it.

"Did you see them here then?" Rose was trying to keep her tone conversational but couldn't help being aware that she was having limited success.

"Oh, yes. Didn't you know they were here? They're camping just down there," she pointed to an area close to what looked like a boating lake "Or they were, but I haven't seen them in a couple of days, so I, er, I wasn't sure if they'd left."

"Oh right?" Rose seemed to have taken Scorpius' role in the conversation which, she thought, made sense as Albus was her cousin and just Scorpius'... friend she supposed. She glanced back at Scorpius, who did seem to be listening very intently. _They're friends. Just friends. If that. Look, James is listening too. Just ignore it. _Hastily, she looked back to the Hufflepuff, delicately ignoring the fact that James was Albus' brother and might, by any sane person, be expected to want to know where he was.

"Yeah, well when I saw you I kind of assumed they were still there. But, um, I don't know..."

"You don't think you could take us to where they were do you? So that we can check, because, um..." Rose groaned inwardly. Between them, they seemed to be using more 'um's than real words.

Fortunately, though, the other girl didn't seem to care about Rose's hesitation. Indeed, she seemed quite happy with the idea. "Sure," she said, smiling widely "I mean, I could do it now if you like,"

"That would be great-" Rose began, but she was hastily cut off by James.

"Don't you think we should leave it Rosie?" _What?_ Why would they want to leave it? "Until tomorrow, I mean. It's getting dark. If they're not there, we'll have to get back to our tent and if they are by the time we get there they might be... asleep or something. It might take a while to find them anyway, we'll have all day tomorrow. _And_ we don't have a torch,"

"We've got wands," Honestly, had he forgotten he was a wizard?

"Yes, and only one person who can use them. I'm sure nobody would be at all suspicious if they saw the four of us going around by wandlight. At a muggle campsite." Rose wondered passively whether her cheeks had turned an impressively fluorescent shade of scarlet. How could she have overlooked that?

"Well. I suppose. But... we don't want to waste time..."

"Neither do we want to get lost. So we'll meet you here tomorrow then? Or maybe up at reception so we know exactly where?" James turned to the Hufflepuff without pausing.

"Um... that would be further away from them and it would take longer. How about down by that big willow tree on the path to the lake? Then we'll have a landmark,"

"Yeah, alright. What time?"

"I dunno, you're kind of in a hurry aren't you-" she glanced almost nervously at Rose "-so we might want to make it quite early..."

Maybe it was their casual, brisk manner, but Rose suddenly had a wild thought that they could have been planning a picnic. In fact, she wasn't sure their Hufflepuff acquaintance would be all too against that. She did seem perfectly happy to go out of their way to take them to find Albus. That was fairly odd actually. But then, everything did seem to be spiralling overenthusiastically out of place...

"Right, thanks. So, we'll see you tomorrow then. Bye,"

"See you!"

"What?" she looked up suddenly and saw the Hufflepuff half-running off one way, looking happier than Rose thought should be allowed when life was so petulantly frustrating, and James walking purposefully the other, while Scorpius waited almost uncertainly not far off. She jogged to catch up and they started following James, feeling stiffly awkward. "Wait, what happened?"

"Er, we're meeting Louise tomorrow morning. Half nine by the willow tree,"

"So it's Louise..."

Rose had really been muttering to herself but apparently Scorpius thought it would be necessary for him to answer anyway "Yeah, Louise Gap. We were with her for herbology last year I think, and-"

"Yes, OK," Rose suspected she might be blushing again. Which was probably why she was talking so quickly. " Incidentally, she looked remarkably like she had this... overwhelming desire to kill you," there was a pause. Rose quickly cut off her overactive imagination before it had a chance to tell her she wasn't being fair.

"Yeah, um... well- what?"

"You told me everybody wanted to kill you," her tone was clipped. _OK, now I'm definitely not being fair._ She stopped momentarily, then realised she might not even care. Then she realised Scorpius was speaking.

"Yeah, well I didn't quite mean everyone, obviously. And she hadn't seen facebook yet, so..."

"You said everyone _already_ wanted to kill you,"

"I'll be sure to watch my tongue around you in the future in case you ever feel the need to pull me up on every single thing I've said again, then,"

The silence prickled around them and Rose realised she must have triumphed by getting a reaction from him. But he didn't look angry. Just tired... confused possibly. Maybe even a bit upset. Possibly slightly cute... _No. No, I did not think that._

"Look Rose, I'm sorry, I never meant for..." no, that was a change for the worse, definitely "I'm sorry, Rose,"

Just repetitive. Whiny possibly. Maybe a bit tedious. "Oh, spare me, please,"

**There you go, it's my random craziness. So, it might be terrible. But then it might not. And I'm still being mainly evil, so sorry. Review?**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N – Sorry, it's been ages again. I actually started writing this one just after I published the other one, but thought it wasn't going very well so didn't come back to it for ages.**

**So, thanks to **_**Gaaaaaaaabbbbyyyyyyy **_**and to **_**stars fall at midnight**___**for reviewing, and to **_**PurplePookie**_** and to**_**Hungarymama**_** for putting this on story alerts. Sorry if I either missed you or said you when I've already said you before. It's because it's been so long.**

**Also, I'm interested to know how old people think I am based on my writing, so if you like – and if you don't already know – put a guess of my age in a review. I'll tell you my actual age next time I post a chapter. Unless nobody guesses, because that would be pointless.**

**Disclaimer – It's been a while, but that doesn't mean I own it now. Because I don't.**

The next morning found Rose and Scorpius shifting awkwardly under the spreading willow that they had already allocated nearly half an hour before they were supposed to be there, which was – naturally – largely due to Rose's inability to wait. James, meanwhile, had only grudgingly forsaken the extra half hour of sleep and was sitting half sprawled on the grass a few feet away, industriously eating a few sandwiches that Rose could only assume he had brought with him from her house.

"Rose...?" if Rose had been in a suitable position to, she would have smacked her face against a desk... or a wall... or maybe a pillow; that would have been softer at least. Why did Scorpius seem to think it was a good idea to break the silence? "Rose, I'm sorry,"

"Scorpius SHUT UP!"

The silence – or maybe it was her own words – rang blissfully quiet in her ears for about a second. "Rose?" now she was beginning to regret forsaking sleep too.

"Look Malfoy, if you apologise to me once more, I swear I will hex you," slightly groggily, she fished around in her pocket for where her wand must be. Finding it, she looked up. Scorpius had finally managed to shut up, but his expression was as dubious as she felt. Quickly, before he could open his mouth again, she garbled "OK, so we both know that's not going to happen, but I will... I'll er... I'll get James to hex you,"

As one, they glanced at James, who grinned back through a mouthful of sandwich and waved at them, though slightly encumbered by another chunk of sandwich, giving no indication of whether or not he had heard her. James hexing Scorpius, Rose decided, was far more likely than her doing it herself. Especially if she asked him to. Briefly, she wondered whether Scorpius was worried about that. He looked like he might be. But then he did look worried half the time at the moment... she stole a glance at him, gradually realising she must have decided for certain that she wouldn't ask James to hex him and vaguely wondering when and why exactly she had made the decision.

"Ro-" Scorpius stopped and replaced the word with a cough that cut across her thoughts, starting a fresh bout of silence roaring through her ears.

Maybe Louisa – no, Louise would arrive early too. Rose hoped so. The seemingly bland Hufflepuff would provide a certain level of relief after Scorpius and the sandwiches. In fact, maybe James had finished his sandwiches now – even he would be a relief compared to Scorpius' constant whiny attempts to-

"I really did- I really thought I loved you, you know,"

"What?" Rose's head had whipped around a bit faster than she had meant for it to.

"I really thought-" Scorpius seemed vaguely surprised that he had said it. Or maybe he was just looking a bit worried.

She rubbed her neck "Yes, OK, I heard you,"

Maybe he'd been expecting a bit more of a response.

"I swear I never would have gone out with you if I hadn't felt like I... well, if I'd realised..." he sighed, apparently realising it wasn't going shockingly well. "Look, I did think- I didn't do anything to deliberately upset you. I really thought... I think as a friend..."

"You're not very good at this are you?"

OK, so he had almost certainly been expecting more of a response then; maybe she felt a bit bad for being so brutal. But then he'd deserved it. _Or so I told myself_. She didn't even think she believed that herself anymore.

"When I was... with you... I felt this kind of, happiness I suppose. I thought it must be, like... fancying...ness. But then... well I think now it might just have been because I was... accepted?"

So that was all she was there for was it? For him to be accepted? "Well, I'm glad I – we, I suppose – were able to be of service," she spoke coolly, and stopped abruptly.

"No. no, sorry –" she sighed "– I didn't mean that. I mean, I like you as a person. I didn't want to just – well, use you I suppose."

"So when," Rose demanded, her curiosity overcoming her scorn in a brief internal battle "did you decide – wait, no, realise –" she couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice, even though she was pretty sure she knew she really believed he was telling the truth "that I wasn't good enough?"

"It wasn't that you're not good enough," he began hastily, but stopped. "And, well, it wasn't sudden. But I think- I think it was mainly because – well, when I saw you with other boys. As in, like, talking to them and whatever, I think I thought it was jealousy at first. And I thought I was just being ludicrous because nobody feels jealous just for that. And then I thought it might be because I, well I needed you because- because half the school wanted to kill me," Rose tried to glare but couldn't help feeling more than a little amused, on top of feeling a little, but not – the part of her that still wanted to believe him malicious insisted – more than a little, sorry for him "and I also thought it might mean our relationship was stronger because- you know. Anyway, then maybe it changed but I realised it was – different. Obviously then I thought maybe – it might be, you know. And I kept on thinking about it and telling myself it wasn't, but then..." _but then I realised that it happened around your cousin, the least likely person for you to date, more than anyone else, and then I knew._

Rose couldn't hear the unspoken words, but she saw them: or she saw a jittery, nervous thought, just beyond where she could read it, etched in her ex-boyfriend's expression. Maybe it was fortunate for her that half her mind was registering surprise that he had told her all that, and in more detail than she expected, while the other half was processing it and trying to decide whether that should make it better or worse, leaving only what was left – which should of course logically be nothing – to scrutinise her adversary's face. That was probably also the reason that she still hadn't realised that he hadn't actually answered the her question when a sandwich that gave off a distractingly horrible smell of tuna appeared about a foot away from his left shoulder, with James attached to it.

He quickly pushed it into his mouth, leaving Rose to wonder just how many of them he had got through that morning and to make a mental note to check just how many he had brought.

"Our Hufflepuff friend should be here soon," he promptly announced around the last dregs of bread.

Rose checked her watch "It's still not quite twenty past nine, James,"

"Yeah, but she'll be here early,"

"No, I doubt she's as crazy as me."

"No, that's why she didn't arrive as early as we did. You can still be crazy without being as crazy as you,"

A small, exasperated sigh escaped Rose, which her cousin didn't fail to notice, but expertly ignored "So when do you e

," Just as Rose finished speaking, they saw a female figure threading her way purposefully down the path towards their willow treexpect her to be here?"

"Oh any time within the next five or ten minutes..."

"So any time between now and the time we expected her to be here. Wow, James, now we know you don't think she'll be late." Just as Rose finished speaking, they saw a female figure threading her way purposefully down the path towards their willow tree. Unfortunately, though, before she got any closer, a small owl bounced through the branches above them and landed on Rose's shoulder, dropping something conspicuously red and flat into Rose's hand.

"Excellent," she murmured, glaring at the howler as it began to smoulder lightly. James was vaguely swirling his wand and muttering "Muffliato," and it hit her that she had better open it. It would, of course, be her luck that her nails were gnawed right down to the skin and fumbled like a bunch of... clumsy things and she tried to slit one under. Oh no, it wouldn't be her luck, her stupidity... nothing to do with luck.

_Rose, you are to come home immediately. How on earth you managed to come by the reckless lack of common sense to urge you to go running off I don't know, but it was exceedingly immature of you and very irresponsible of James to take it upon himself to drag you off in the first place. Did you not consider- ?_

Louise – Rose could tell for sure it was her now, as she glared up the path with a hand on her aching head – was getting much closer. Hopefully her mum would have finished shouting by the time she arrived.

_And it's incredibly disappointing that you've brought Scorpius Malfoy into your escapade. I would never have expected you to be a bad influence on a so- on him, but you need to learn to consider your actions. Of course , if I find that you have taken him against his will, I will be contacting his father immediately._

Well that was ludicrous. Her mum had no idea they weren't still going out, how could she begin to believe that? They had hardly forced Scorpius to come. Only asked him. Particularly forcefully. In any case, they wouldn't have been able to make him come if he really hadn't wanted to. Or maybe James would... but he wouldn't actually have done...

"Hey, Rose" Ah, that must mean Louise had arrived. Why did everything have to happen so _quickly_?

"Er, hi," Rose tried to surreptitiously check her watch, then checked again to see if it had stopped, because she didn't think she could manage James getting even more superior: it was only 10:22. How on earth had he known that?

"So, um..." all eyes seemed to fix on the Hufflepuff, who apparently had no more idea of something to say than Rose did. Fortunately for them all though, the ever-helpful James stepped in seconds after the pause had become slightly more awkward than was bearable.

"Well, excellent. How about we go and find Al?"

This seemed to be a decent idea, so they lost as little time in possible in setting off down the track that hugged close to the boating lake, unorthodox group though they were.

So Scorpius had thought he'd loved her. Really, she hadn't expected him to be so dim. Fancied, maybe, or liked, would have been more appropriate. But, she couldn't help telling herself, they had been dating for more than three years, maybe _fancied _wasn't quite so accurate as she'dthought. _And didn't I once have similar feelings._ No. Rose shut herself up as well as she could: maybe once she had had similar feelings, but they were as dead as Malfoy's now that he'd done... whatever it was that he'd done. Now that he'd deceived her, for however long.

Eventually, she had the idea to look around instead of disturbing the summer-thick dust in her head. Scorpius was walking a few paces away, beside her, looking worried. Unsurprisingly. She was vaguely aware of James talking to Louise ahead of them, but it was only trivial, until Louise pointed ahead in the general direction of what seemed to be their destination. They could only hope that they would find them there, because Rose had no idea what they would do if they didn't. Maybe at least they'd be able to convince some more people that there really was a problem, she reasoned as she plodded on. Her mum would be furious if they stayed for much longer anyway, and she didn't know how she could justify it, now that she'd got her letter.

A sudden dull ache stabbed into her foot; there must have been a root or something on the ground for her to obliviously ignore. Then she realised it had sent her sprawling. Her thoughts sped, arms flailing to catch her fall, but they hit only something hard, wet, and easily penetrable. Her mind didn't seem to be so penetrable though. It must have taken at least a few seconds for the situation to slice like cold lightning into it. Once it had, her arms flailed more, making large splashes, and she found herself screaming _"Shit, I've fallen in the lake,"_

Of course, it was just her luck – no, her stupidity – that the words came out only as bubbles.

**There. I don't like this one much. Or maybe I just read it too many times so it doesn't flow well for me. Review?**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N –Hey. Yeah, this story. I suppose it's really kind of missing presumed dead, but remember what is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger. I'm not sure if this story will do that though, but I want to finish it and I haven't written anything for it since January. I'm so sorry it's been so long and I *hope* now that I can actually get this done. Because it's been so long I wanted to get it up quickly, so I've only read it through once and it might not be soon enough after writing it to pick up anything stupid so sorry for errors and stuff. I might have to come back and do some editing at some point.**

**I think with this I felt happier about writing it when I first started it, so it may or may not feel a bit odd (especially because of the long break) and I may or may not be more prone to writer's block than I should be.**

**No reviews for the last chapter :/ But thanks to **_**FlourishAndBlott**_** for reviewing the story since the last chapter (and sorry if someone else did and I forgot. I'll be replying individually to reviews more or less as they come now).**

**Disclaimer – Yeah. I'll tell you if anything ever happens towards me owning Harry Potter. It hasn't.**

For a second there was silence. Everything seemed to have stopped, the world pausing for a few beats so that the situation could clear itself through the clouds in Scorpius' mind. The whole situation, months and months – even, in a way, years – of it. Him, having arrived at Hogwarts, being made a Gryffindor, the two awkward years when he had no close friends and never knew what to say to family; that time, in the last week of second year. He had just been... overcome when he and Rose had suddenly been going out. He had thought his mind was clear then, but he hadn't realised it was just fogging more and more. Then there was the slow realisation and... and _no. Admit it to yourself properly _and he fancied Albus Potter. It felt so sudden in his mind but it couldn't be. That wasn't allowed.

It all seemed much clearer now though, if only for a few seconds the intrusive splash of water had dispelled some of his confusion, his stupidity.

And now... Now, it slowly dawned on him, he was just staring ahead, gormless, at Rose flailing in the lake. _So much for dispelling my stupidity. _How had she managed to fall in there anyway? Was it even possible to fall over by walking badly? And – hadn't he seen her swimming perfectly well so many times before?

Then everything was happening at once. Rose shouted something indistinguishable, James offered a slightly more distinguishable reply that sounded like an insult and dived dramatically in after her and Louise – it took him a few seconds to spot her as he wondered dimly whether he should be jumping in the lake to help Rose too – was hurtling full-pelt up the path apparently having seen something.

Scorpius, apparently, was the only one who hadn't partaken in the unspoken agreement to start a sudden flurry of possibly-helpful movement.

He probably should have jumped in the lake really. Maybe he still should. Even if Rose could swim, she wasn't doing it and it looked like she needed help. So, her cousin was helping her but Scorpius should have done something useful. Now he'd probably just given her another legitimate reason to be annoyed with him. Was the best thing about him really – as she seemed to have thought earlier – that he was a human who didn't want to be a death eater? Maybe, if he couldn't even help girls who had fallen into lakes–

Louise's shout was the first thing that he noticed and her flurry of fast-moving blonde-ish hair, which preceeded an equally fast-moving body followed quickly after as she came back towards them. Then, just as he had time to start feeling confused about her brief disappearance, he saw the answer to it. The thing she had seen so suddenly and run so quickly off for, the thing that had followed her back.

Albus Potter.

His hair, Scorpius noticed, was very dark and contrasted perfectly with his shining green eyes, as he had known it would when they found them. _Stop it. You can stop fancying him, nothing is_ ever _going to happen. He's probably straight. He's Rose's cousin. _It looked like one of his front teeth was chipped, maybe in Quidditch, and it was... endearing, almost surprisingly so- _Stop thinking about him. He. Is. Rose's. Cousin. _He did have a very nice smile though, half of his mouth lifting up a little more than the other in polite amusement as he watched his brother pull the redhead out of the lake, all the time swearing shamelessly. _And he's straight._

"You complete _idiot_ Rose," It was apparently necessary for James to make his feelings about Rose's time in the lake clearer as he dripped water over her face.

The girl in question, however, sat up quickly, with more pressing matters to hand "Albus," she coughed out a little water and tried again "I'd say _your brother_ is an idiot, James. _Why,_ Al, did you not send an owl. _What_ is going on? Would it really have been that difficult to _tell us?_"

"She does have a point," the older, less tolerable (heck, _much_ less tolerable) of the brothers conceded after a moment's musing. "But _how_," He turned back to the Rose "Did you manage to fall in the lake? And _how_ did you manage to _not_ get back out again? I suppose maybe you just wanted a hero to jump in and rescue you?" his smirk was back "Well, it was fun and I suppose I, once again, showed my excellence by actually suffering _water_ to save your life. But now my clothes are wet. Yours too,"

Scorpius wondered whether either of them had realised they could use magic to dry their clothes, but the thought escaped when he caught a glance of Albus out of the corner of his eye, staring at him. No, he was grinning at him, that pretty, lopsided smile again, and rolling his eyes at his brother's antics. It took a few seconds for the blond to remember that they had been friends – not the closest, but close enough to chat, to exchange exasperation. Then only another few seconds to wonder how he had managed to go all that time without any of – this.

That was when Albus chose the moment to interject "Ah, not to disturb you or anything, but what exactly is going on? I did send an owl but-"

"We _never_ got an owl-"

Rose didn't seem to be satisfied, but James didn't give her a chance to express it "What does it look like we're doing? We're searching for you-" that, Scorpius thought, must have been _exactly_ what it looked like the group was doing. It took him less than a second to decide _not_ to ask Albus how, exactly, he had managed to miss it. "-since you decided not to come home. _We _need to get home soon though, because Aunt Hermione's already slightly mad and nobody's going to be impressed if we miss mum's birthday. Or if Dad does actually. On that cheerful note, where _is _Dad? You know, maybe if you told _us_ what was going on we could sort everything out,"

"Right. Well, er, if you like we can go back to the tent and have a cup of tea and tell each other what's going on. You too of course Louise, you can come." The Hufflepuff, who until that point had been standing to the side looking nearly as awkwardly redundant as Scorpius himself must have been, grinned widely, maybe a little relieved – as Scorpius himself would have been – and muttered some vaguely incoherent acceptance.

In fact, Scorpius was noting with vague disappointment that he himself hadn't been personally invited when he realised that, as far as Albus was concerned, he was still going out with Rose and would automatically be counted as part of the group. He tried to avoid the relief finding its way to his own features until it hit him: as much as he might like to have tea with Albus, he didn't want to be in the same room as him. He didn't want to see the look of disappointment, or anger, or whatever on his face when he found out what had happened.

It seemed like he had only just noticed that they had finished what they had been trying to do, that Rose's – quest or whatever it was, was over. And as he did, he noticed how much he had been hoping they would manage it, hoping they would find Albus, that nothing terrible had happened. He noticed how easy it had been, how odd it felt. Then he noticed that he _couldn't _be around Albus, in the same room as him – whatever – right now. He _couldn't_ be around when Albus found out what he had done to his family.

He couldn't be around Albus _ever_. It wouldn't be right to have feelings for him anyway. He was _Rose's straight cousin_ for heaven's sake. He didn't know if he could manage that morally – somehow he hoped he wouldn't be able to. And – oh, he wouldn't be able to bear seeing anything of Albus after – after Rose and James had told him, once he'd started to agree with them about – him.

If nothing else, he had promised Rose, in a fit of annoyance and embarrassment in her bedroom.

"Uh." What should he _say?_ "You know – you still have... wet clothes. I'll go back to our tent and grab some spare ones. Well, I'll get our bags. If you like,"

And he was running up the path before he could hear their responses, too quick for James' haughty "whatever", for Rose's muttered, shocked "thanks", too quick for Albus' resigned confusion.

**There you go **

**I'm not sure how long there's going to be between each of my updates, but I'm going to try to be quicker and I know more or less what each of the next two chapters at least is going to be about, so if I don't update soon, shout at me.**

**Oh, also the next one will probably be Rose POV, but I'm thinking of doing it with James or maybe even Albus. If you have a preference, tell me.**

**Review?**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N – Yo. New chapter.**

**Thanks to **_**ParticularlyGoodFINDer44 **_**for reviewing the last chapter. You're awesome. Also to **_**Viola Potterhead Girl**_** for putting it on Story Alerts and favourites, you're awesome too. Only one review though. :/ Virtual cookies to all reviewers.**

**Some interesting facts you probably don't care about reading about this chapter: 1) I *think* it's the longest so far. 2) I also *think* it's had the shortest gap between updates since the one between chapters 1 and 2. **

**Same as last chapter, only read through once, so I might need to come back and edit it later.**

**Disclaimer – I don't even know exactly what I own from this, but I don't own Harry Potter and I don't own much.**

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><p>For a moment, Rose hadn't been able to comprehend it. She had wondered whether she had been dreaming, or had just imagined what was going on, because finding Albus was <em>the whole point<em> of what they were doing and it was going to be difficult and annoying and it was highly unlikely that he would just magically appear in the middle of the path while she was making a fool of herself with her ineptitude once again. He had though, and she didn't know whether to be embarrassed that he had just seen her nearly drowning or to be relieved that he was there.

It was only as she stared at Scorpius' retreating back, filled with a shock she was trying to suppress at having just felt – gratitude, maybe or...something towards him – at having thanked him – that she realised. Her cousin's sudden appearance would only serve as one more thing to make her look stupid, to make her whole crazy trip and messed-up worry look ridiculous. She tried to avoid feeling angry with him for turning up; that had, after all, been what she had been hoping for all along. Then she realised that being angry with him was completely justified because if he'd just managed to tell them what was going on there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place, and so turned to glare at him just soon enough to realise he, Louise and James were turning to walk back to his tent. _Excellent. I can't even follow a conversation long enough to know what's going on._

"You know," James, she thought, seemed to be making a phenomenal effort to find something annoying to say "We are so much more incompetent than our parents. When _they _were our age they'd already saved the world about ten times and were off alone doing important stuff-"

"Not when they were _our age_," Albus amended.

"Close enough. When they were my age anyway, maybe you're just too young..." Rose scoffed, and was granted about a minute's reprieve before her cousin decided what he had to say was necessary after all "But then we can't even manage a simple... find and retrieve... exertion. There weren't even any dark wizards around and Rose managed to find some way of endangering herself."

"Thank you James," Rose's voice rang with a terseness that she could only have picked up from her mother, but it didn't seem to be enough.

"I wouldn't want to have dark wizards on our tail; we'd have lost before we started. I don't know what the point of bringing your boyfriend was though. Unless he's secretly some kind of dark wizard fighting extraordinaire and you were just taking the precaution. Scorpy hasn't been useful at all-"

"_Scor- _Malfoy is not my boyfriend James, and-"

"-although come to think of it, neither have you,"

Her attempts to get James to stop talking seemed to be becoming increasingly fruitless, so she turned instead to be disappointed that Albus was already in some conversation with a mildly flustered-looking Louise. That merited an inward sigh, and Rose was contemplating the relative benefits of walking the rest of the way in silence and butting in when the younger Potter seemed to realise what she and James had been talking about.

"There was a dark wizard actually,"

Rose sneezed, a few remaining drops of water falling from her fingers, but didn't have time to be thankful that the weather was warm enough that falling in the lake wouldn't kill her. Or even come close. Would it have been so hard for Albus to have realised that that might have been important?

"Well, I suppose he was kind of a dark wizard. But I don't think it really matters now; he's gone."

It was a rare thing for Rose to share any common sentiments with James, but as she glanced at his exasperated face, the urge to exchange a meaningful look with him managed to grow.

"What? I was going to tell you when we got back to the tent. It's hardly going to affect us right now is it?"

"If he's gone it's not like he's going to attack us or anything. We probably didn't _need _to know," Heck, Louise's presence had been so inconspicuous it would have been easy for Rose to forget.

James', on the other hand, was less so. His glare seemed to speak at least as loudly as the Hufflepuff's words, or Albus must have thought so, because he sighed, half-smiling and muttered, "If it means so much to you James... few nights ago Dad woke me up and – look it sounds really stupid, but we were being attacked by this guy..."

He frowned, trailing off and feeling like an idiot, but fortunately for him everyone had already stopped listening by that point anyway. "You got _attacked_ and you didn't even tell us?"

"No, I _did _tell you. I sent an owl... Anyway, I woke up and curses were flying, dad was shouting at me to leave, you know. There were some muggles in the next tents who had woken up and they were shouting outside but this guy shot a confundus charm at me and I ducked and grabbed my wand, but then – well I'm not really sure what happened, some other people appeared – Dad says they were French Ministry. And he disapparated. Really it wasn't _that_ bad, though, and-"

James, unsurprisingly, didn't seem to empathise, and felt the need to show it by muttering darkly "You sure that confundus didn't hit?"

Rose, on the other side of James, was mildly dazed to find herself of the same mind. "Not _that_ bad? So why didn't you come home straight away afterwards and just-"

She was cut off by what she deduced was their arrival at Albus' tent, which he seemed to welcome gratefully "Right. Er, we'd better go in, and I'll – make that tea..."

And so they crawled in and stood up, James and Rose with remarkably similar expressions of mild annoyance, while Louise chewed a nail in worry. The first thing that struck Rose was the size difference between the Potters' first tent and their spare one, which she, James and Scorpius had been using, and then, naturally, she had to wonder at the logic of two people staying in such a roomy apartment. At least, she reasoned, it wasn't big enough to even compare to Scorpius' house.

The two Potters seemed unsurprised enough though (_Shut up, of course they're not surprised, it's _their_ tent, _she found herself admonishing), with James leading the way to the kitchen and Albus starting to make the tea he had hastily suggested. Neither of them had thought their conversation important enough to restart, and Louise wasn't any help, having only ever camped the muggle way before, and consumed with a kind of detached awe that far surpassed Rose's own, so it was with a feeling of moral obligation that she finally demanded a continuation and elaboration on Albus' story as he passed her a steaming mug and a towel.

"Honestly, Rose, whatever you were doing sounds a whole lot more interesting," which was why she didn't want to start talking about it: often when things involving her were interesting, it was because she'd managed to do something foolish. "We were attacked and he disapparated. Oh, he broke the tent too, so don't go next door – it's a bit weird in the living room. A whole bunch of muggles had to be obliviated... your family was probably too far away though wasn't it Louise?" this was confirmed with a nod "And the ministry started trying to hunt the guy that did it. That's where Dad is now; he agreed to help, being an auror and there still being a potential danger and everything. I mean – you know what he's like..." maybe Albus was surprised at having been in Rose and James' company and speaking for so long without being interrupted, but whatever the reason, he seemed to be trailing off again.

"What are you doing here then?" James decided to help the conversation "You helping the ministry too?"

"No," his brother kept going with only enough time spared for the briefest of annoyed looks. "Dad told me he could apparate me home if I wanted, but what with going home and explaining everything, getting there and back, that was going to take a lot of time out of whatever it was he needed to do so we agreed I'd stay here and send an owl, then go back when he'd finished. Obviously-"

"We didn't get an owl,"

"Obviously the owl didn't arrive, but-"

"But could you not have found any other more reliable means of communication?" He was completely unharmed and she was sure everyone thought she was stupid by now.

"Sparky knows the way easily, I hardly expected her to not reach you. Actually I am starting to get worried about her. I'd expected her back by yesterday, giving time for both journeys but obviously if she didn't even reach you..."

It was Louise who piped up a reassurance about her probably getting lost in a storm or something and about how she'd just be late, because James – presumably – was uninterested and Rose was lost wondering about how Albus could be so calm about being _attacked_.

"So it's definitely safe now then?" She demanded.

"Do you want it in writing?" Albus teased, half-grinning "Do you think Dad would've let me stay here if it wasn't? They caught the attacker on the first day, I think, but since they still needed help, they managed to persuade Dad to stay for a few more days. We'd probably have been coming home soon anyway. Or Dad would have changed his mind and at least taken me home,"

He left a few beats' pause, but Rose was sure he was about to ask about them, so she deflected attention with the first thing on her mind. "I – wonder where Scorpius is..."

"Oh yeah," She realised she was surprised again when Louise was the one to reply. "He has been gone a while. Does he even know which one- Ah no!" Rose whipped around quickly, but saw that the exclamation had only been caused by her looking at her watch in conjunction with her musings about Scorpius "I told my parents I'd be back by eleven... maybe you should search for him. I'll come back later and help too if I can. If you want. But – I'm sorry, d'you mind if I go?"

"Oh – no that's fine," Albus smiled at her and she grinned back.

"Thanks for the tea. Sorry if I wasn't much help. And sorry for leaving so suddenly, I will be back soon" And she was running Cinderella-style back out of the tent.

"Funny how you're so worried about him," James couldn't miss an opportunity even with the interruption "What with you hating him now..."

_Damn_. Why did the first thing on her mind have to be _that_? "I'm not _so worried_, James, I was just saying that it's odd how he's not come back."

"Maybe we _should_ look for him..." Albus agreed quietly, and then Rose was counting the seconds while they stared at each other until he either realised what had been said, or decided to pick her up on what he had already realised "You hate him? To be honest you don't look like you hate him. What's happened?"

James picked up the answer before she could speak, though whether it was because he thought it would be helpful or to annoy her she would probably never know "Scorpy reckons he's gay. Rosie reckons he's trying to spite her. On top of that, you disappearing and her O.W.L. results... probably also just generally having to suffer people as wonderfully vexing as myself, her brother, our various other cousins-"

Did he really have to mention the results? "_Malfoy_ and _Rose_, James,"

"-she went a little bit crazy and decided she needed to come and look for you, but being a bit crazy decided she needed Scorp with her. We met Louise, who'd seen you, Rose fell in the lake, then you turned up. _Presumably_ Louise saw you and ran to get you while I was saving our dear cousin from a horrible death, because I don't know where you came from. Oh, also, Rose got a howler from her mum telling her to come home with her boyfriend. And with me, I suppose,"

Luckily, Albus seemed to decide he _didn't _need to mention the results. "Well. I – I'm sorry about your breakup, Rose..." It sounded more like a question than a statement, and hung in the air, demanding an elusive reply while all three of them searched for one, the pause petulantly refusing to shrink. "It's – well, I suppose you must still fancy Scorpius, in a way and-"

"I do _not_ still fancy Malfoy in _any_ way,"

She was looking at Albus instead of James, so couldn't see his smirk, but she heard it in his voice. "I'm sorry Rose, but you do."

"It's understandable," Albus must have grown adept at filling conversations just before they got awkward, but, Rose surmised, it couldn't always be easy to avoid injecting awkwardness of his own.

"Oh _shut up," _she told herself firmly not to stand up and draw her wand "He's not-" but she was stoically ignoring the feeling that maybe it was true. "What about Louisa then? Have you worked out that _she _fancies _you _yet?"

Apparently not. Her cousin must have looked at least as shellshocked as she had been, and only had time to mutter a surprised amendment of "Louise," Before her _other _cousin – the more annoying one – was grinning.

"I wondered if anyone else had noticed."

"You can't _know _that," Albus said.

"Well, no, but-"

James interrupted her "Well you kind of can. I knew it was one of us ages ago – how did you think I knew she'd arrive early, Rosie Posie?"

"_Rose_,"

"But if Rose reckons it's you, I suppose I'll have to resign myself to being bested by my little brother, just this once,"

"James, you have a _girlfriend_," Rose reprimanded.

"I _know_, and I don't want to go out with Louise or anything stupid, just you wouldn't want people to fancy your little brother over you would you? Oh, and also-" he was already talking again before Rose had a chance to point out that as her little brother was a boy she wouldn't really mind.

Albus, however, seemed to agree that James' company wasn't as good as he would have people believe. Or maybe he had just had more than enough gossip, but whatever the reason, he cut in "I think we _should _go and look for Scorpius. Maybe you should go home soon too, if Aunt Hermione's that annoyed..."

His brother seemed marginally put out at not being able to finish what he had been saying, but must decided it wasn't worth it. He was still on the point of explaining to Rose how Scorpius' use was now going to be less than zero when they first started to hear the noises outside the tent, and only tailed off uncharacteristically as they seemed to grow more distinguishable.

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><p><strong>There. I'm starting to think this story's getting a bit stale. Everything seems quite repetitive and sludgy. What do you think? It will be the first chapter story I've ever finished (unless you count a less-than-20-page book about fairies I made with my sister when I was about 5, which I don't), so it's probably just because I'm not used to keeping stories sustained. Feel free to tell me if it's going bad or you're going off it.<strong>

**Oh and if the storyline's boring, it should get more interesting but I was having some trouble making storylines fit, so sorry if it's no good.**

**Also reviews? Please?**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N – I'm updating this quickly now because it's the Summer holidays. I'm planning to get it all finished in the next few weeks.**

**But first, I know it's my fault if you're not for abandoning it for so long, but is anyone still reading this? I do want to finish it, but if nobody is then there isn't a lot of point in hurrying to get the chapters up. So if you are (or if you've only just found it but are reading it) please review, so I know you are, and that you want the chapters, even if it's just really short, saying what you think of it, or just that you're reading it if you really want. I had no reviews for the last chapter. :/**

**Disclaimer – Nothing's changed regarding my ownership of Harry Potter. I promise I'll tell you if it does.**

A gust of wind seemed to have designs on a lock of Scorpius' hair, picking it up, swinging it in front of his eyes, and forcing it back down, whipping mutinously against his face. Frowning deeply, he cursed it, cursed the wind, his hair, cursed himself. Why had he agreed to come here in the first place? So, he owed Rose, but he should have known – he should have wanted to stay _away_ from Albus, especially since – everything with Rose. _Why can't you _think_? _He berated his mind, cutting off the inevitable assertion it would offer him that Albus – in all his messy-haired and crooked-smiling glory – was both straight and Rose's cousin.

It was getting cold now, and he would have been grateful for Albus' cup of tea; at least if he had gone with them his hair wouldn't have been blowing all over the place. At least, he realised, he wouldn't have to somehow find the right tent without ever having seen it before later. He could almost wish he had now, what with the wind picking up and the uphill walk, but he had only to remember that he didn't want to experience a fit of awkwardness surpassed only by Rose magically turning up in his bedroom after his... tactless letter and feel glad that he, at least for now, wasn't with the group.

That was always more than enough to slow his pace to a walk and, as such, he couldn't help noticing people as he walked past, and had to avoid attempts that he hoped were subconscious to try to slow down his journey all the more by watching them.

Hurrying past a young woman shouting something at a man by the side of the path, he located the Potters' spare tent as fast as he could, ducked in, and realised he had, in his haste, consented to carry three full backpacks. _Well aren't you clever?_ For all he knew, they'd probably be carrying them back later too, he reasoned as he sighed and slung them all over his shoulder. Maybe he should take some small relief in that they'd probably make the return journey slower.

They did. But since they cut angrily into his shoulder it gave him no relief. Stupid Rose, for thinking of bringing him in the first place. Stupid Albus for being so... fanciable. He wished neither they'd both just go away. James too. Especially James. Though, he gave up his efforts to deny, he couldn't help wishing Rose would forgive him – or at least he had never been such a fool with her – and Albus would... Albus would not go away.

Of course, he was then obliged to make the hasty mental emendation that _he_ was stupid too. Probably the stupidest of them all. _He _should go away. Heck, they should all just leave now and never see each other again. Except Rose and James and Albus of course. They would have a hard job never seeing each other again. Maybe he should just distance-

"Oh be quiet," for a minute, he thought he was talking to himself, and was already in the process of making himself stop, when he realised it was a woman's voice, and looked around to see the couple from earlier, still engaged in their desperately important argument.

To his annoyance, he was going slowly enough that he could listen to it this time. And he had remembered that he didn't care whether a man he'd never heard of _really did know_ that whatever it was that he was talking about was so important and was back there somewhere, and didn't give a damn about the woman's low opinion of him.

"No, I think we _really_ need to go back and check it up. It could change everything," _oh shut up. You can change everything somewhere else._

"We just get on with it. We need to get this done." Apparently, the man's companion agreed with Scorpius. At any rate, she had managed to pique his reluctant interest. It wasn't _his_ fault if they couldn't just have an ordinary lovers' tiff or something, like anyone else, or if he felt the need to know what ominous thing they needed to 'get done'.

"I don't like this anyway. I never signed up for _this_,"

He shouldn't be listening in. It had nothing to do with _him. _He was just being stupidly nosy. _But then, it's not like I'm going to change what they're doing or anything. It's just so it'll take me longer to get back._

"Not specifically, but you did sign up and we were hardly going to be taking no risks,"

"It's not the risk I'm worried about,"

"What then, the morality?" Scorpius barely heard the short, sharp bark of a laugh that came with the woman's question, instead devouring the mention of questionable morality. "We don't have a lot of choice, since Jensen went and got caught. And this will be easy. Be quiet and come on." Definitely some kind of muggle criminals. The thought of calling the Police flitted wildly through his mind, but he dimly remembered that he had no idea of how to deal with muggle authorities. Damn, was it some kind of social obligation for the Malfoys to be inept at this kind of thing? _Go on. At least tell me what 'this' is._

Neither party obliged, but one – the man again – came up instead with something that, according to some skewed logic, possibly should have made him feel better, at least now being on familiar territory. "There is _definitely_ another wizard tent back there. I saw it. I could tell. And-"

It didn't.

Why? _How? What _were _wizards _doing here? 'Another wizard tent'. Was that... theirs? It couldn't be Albus'; that was up ahead, so unless they already knew about that, they didn't know about _him_. Or Rose, Louise and James. And surely, _surely_ they were staying in a tent of their own, so by 'another wizard tent' he couldn't mean- _shut up. They probably want nothing to do with you. You don't know why they're here. Go back and find Albus' tent. Go. Walk now, calmly. So they're shifty. Whatever. Get James and Albus to tell their dad, he's _Harry Potter. _They probably want to ignore you. And Albus. _

"You probably don't know what you're talking about," He could still hear her voice, her tone clear and clipped. "Leave it. Even if you're right, it's no matter. Now _quick_. We still need to find Potter's tent."

_Oh shit. _He almost gave it up there and then, almost started running full-pelt in the general direction of Weasley company. _Stop it. They don't know who you are. So warn the others what they're searching for, but _walk, _for heaven's sake. What will they think if you start running?_

"Hold on, no," Apparently, he still couldn't help but notice, the male half of the group still wasn't convinced, and had decided to dig his heels in. "Stop. I know it was a wizard tent. There are other wizards around and they'll fight. We can't meet them. Just – it will ruin _everything_ if you don't listen to me. I _saw_ someone go in the tent. I saw inside, and it was damn well not a muggle tent. That blond boy over there look. _I saw him!_"

_Even better. _If anything was proof that Scorpius didn't want these people to find Albus – or the others – that was. Though now he was faced with several dilemmas. Should he run? Since they knew who he was and might want qto chase him, that would seem pragmatic. But should he drop the bags for speed or keep them so they wouldn't be found – and to avoid Rose's ire? Should he find Albus and warn him, or run in the other direction so _they_ wouldn't? Should he _not_ run? Maybe the man's companion didn't believe him. Maybe he should just keep walking. Or he could draw his wand and fight them. _No. Don't do that._

Slowly, he let himself turn his head. Anyone could do that, if they'd just been loudly pointed out, without arousing suspicion. Surely it wasn't _impossible_ that she held her colleague in such low regard that she still thought Scorpius was just a muggle, and wouldn't care what he did. But there she stood, all gravestone cheekbones and scraped-back hair, eyes fixed on him.

"We'd better check," she said at last, and he realised with disquiet that he was still close enough that he could hear her every word "but if you're wrong and we just have to waste time catching him and wiping his memory, the consequences fall on you."

And then they were running towards him, in what would have been mystifying unision, if Scorpius had had the time to think about it, and he couldn't think anymore about which way he'd run, or how, or why. Before he thought he was already moving. Throwing the bags into the nearest hedge with a silent apology to Rose and a detatched hope that he'd be able to get them again. Hurtling down the dirt track towards the lake. Not because it was going towards the right tent. Not because it went away from it. Simply because it went away from the people on his tail.

He was already halfway there when he started thinking again. Already halfway there when remembered he didn't want them to find Albus. So he veered off, planning to turn in the opposite direction from the one in which he had seen Albus leading them earlier when he reached the lake.

He veered sharply, crashing and turning and shouting. Too sharply, so he fell, tripping. So sharply, so late, that as the pair behind him closed the gap, he caught – maybe on the same root, or stone or...a whatever that Rose had met just hours earlier. Maybe just on the floor. But no matter. However he'd managed to do it, they were nearly upon him when he became the second person that day to career with a decided lack of dignity into the lake.

**OK, so maybe the ending was a bit of a cop out. I shouldn't have two chapters out of the eleven so far ending like that, but hey, the situations were different. And I *think* I'm happier with this chapter anyway.**

**What did you think? If you like it, review. If you don't like it, review. If you're completely indifferent to it, still review (but I don't know why you've got to chapter 11 if you are).**


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